What is digital accessibility and who does it affect?

Digital accessibility refers to the practice of designing or creating digital content (whether websites, applications, etc.) that are inclusive for all types of users regardless of their cognitive or physical abilities, including those with hearing, visual, motor or cognitive disabilities.

Generating accessible digital products is much more important than most people think, not just from one point of view ethical and social responsibility, but also because it has a impact on our business. In addition, certain standards have become mandatory for depending on which organizations.

What is the European Accessibility Directive?

La Web Accessibility Act, better known as the WCAG standards in a more global context, is a set of international accessibility standards to help users with functional diversity in digital media adopted in a new EU Directive on web accessibility.

Today, the European Accessibility Act affects public institutions, who are obliged to comply with some accessibility standards. Siteimprove explained in detail what the European Act is about in this webinar.

In other words, when designing a new website, a series of standards must be met in its design and coding, which allow people with disabilities in terms of vision, hearing or other physical and cognitive challenges to use it relatively easily.

Specifically, an example could be that you have to insert explanatory meta data in images or videos (alternative texts), so that blind people can understand the elements. There are many elements you have to deal with to fully comply with the regulations, and WCAG is also a set of rules where there are many explanations for what an accessible interface should look like. Since these rules are sometimes ambiguous, many public companies have been able to go unnoticed until now, at the same time that they had not been required by law. With the order establishing the accessibility standard for public organizations' websites and mobile applications, which will take effect on September 23, 2020, it will be mandatory to comply with WCAG 2.1 at levels A and AA. In addition, most public authorities should be able to document any requirements that are not met in an accessibility statement.

Beyond regulations: Why web accessibility is important and how it affects your business

And how does it affect private companies? Actually, as a private company, you don't need to comply with accessibility regulations. However, all companies should be aware of the importance of accessible design.

Thinking about the accessibility of digital solutions is a benefit that goes beyond satisfying your customers with disabilities. Accessibility principles have a large number of points in common with good ease-of-use rules in relation to good navigation, feedback, and guidance principles. Principles used to design interfaces and achieve a good conversion rate and a good user experience.

Improve your SEO

Google bots crawl our sites to understand their content and relevance, so that they can index them and then offer them at the right time for each user's query.

Google takes accessibility very seriously, in fact, the more structured and understandable our content is for Google bots, the more it will be for those users with physical and cognitive limitations. Thus, having an accessible website also has an impact on SEO.

Improve the user experience

User experience is key when it comes to accessibility. And when we talk about accessible design for users who have difficulty using digital products, we refer to all users. Everyone at some point has difficulties of some kind to use a device and at this point knowing the context of the users is key. In research of UX we talk about usage scenarios, that is, we try to understand the context of using a product to empathize with users and then offer them an experience appropriate to that scenario. Using an interface from your laptop, sitting on the couch at home, is not the same as wanting to do it while you're on the street, burdened with shopping and a thousand other distractions. Thus, accessibility affects all users.

Tips for accessible design

To evaluate if your site has an accessible design, you should consider the following considerations:

1. Contraste

For people with low visibility problems, contrast is more important than we think. The contrast between the text and the background must have a ratio of at least 4.5/1. But this ratio depends on the size of the font we use as well as on whether they are bold or not. There are many tools that allow you to calculate the ratios, such as this contrast tool.

2. Focus

Changing the state of an element such as a button, link, form field or menu items helps users to position themselves.

In addition, we must take into account the importance of the keyboard tab as a navigation mode for users with motor limitations.

3. Texts or instructions

Providing users with explanatory texts when they are needed to complete an action is essential to making a design accessible. Form fields should have a permanent label in each field.

4. colour

If the user needs access to relevant content, we cannot use color alone to transmit it. Thus, it is recommended to accompany icons or diagrams with explanatory text, especially if they are essential elements for the user.

5. Markup structure and alternative text

A structure of Headings Clara is essential for blind users to understand our content. So HTML markup is essential and should not be used for a matter of style but to make our site accessible.

Label our images correctly, with a descriptive alternative text, it will help visually impaired people to understand what visual content our sites illustrate.

Do you want an accessibility audit?

The first step in complying with accessibility regulations is know the level of accessibility of your site in order to improve it according to the result. If you want to get started, we can offer you a accessibility auditing together with an analysis to define an action plan. Just give us an email and the URL of your website.

How can we help you?

If you need more information do not hesitate to contact us.