Does your website comply with accessibility requirements?

Having a website accessible to people with capabilities and life situations is about law, fashion, and more profits.
Read why below.

Accessibility meaning

There are people with different mental and physical capabilities, different life situations - either temporary or constant ones. Having your website or app adapted for the special demands of the groups above means that it adheres to the standards of accessibility (a11y).

By the way, accessibility professionals suppose that we should adapt websites and applications for all kinds of devices and even to slow internet connection, too.

What people have special requirements for using websites and apps?

People with impairments and special life situations require special attention while developing websites and apps.

What impairments are there?

visual impairments
hearing impairments
mobility impairments
cognitive impairments

In what situations can people experience these impairments and limitations? Check the picture below.

Kinds of impairments — Inspired by http://specialbank.ru/guide/designer.html, the classification reworked by ADCI Solutions

Why business should go for it?

Law. Seriously, the Californian Bag’n Baggage was forced to pay $4,000 to the plaintiff who wasn’t capable to shop on their inaccessible website.
Oftentimes, there is a special accessibility law in a particular country.
Morals. It’s not cool to pretend that everybody has a perfect vision, hearing, has an ability to dig into you complicated parallax things and simply communicate with your app.
Your users are many different unique people. Remember about it.
Lost profit. Following the previous point, do you really think blind or deaf people bring less value? It’s wrong, so if you’re not impressed with possible law issues and morals, think about the business impact.

What businesses are the most vulnerable to be sued?

According to 3PlayMedia, these industries are in danger of being sued:

retail
food service
travel
banking

If you have an app that considers users actively communicate with it - double-check the accessibility standards. If they appear too complicated, consider using the accessibility services of one of the numerous web development teams.

Is your website accessible? Accessibility check

So how does an accessible website look like? Find a couple of examples and ask yourself whether your website has the same issues.

Accessibility for websites — Inaccessible table and fields VS accessible table with accessible fields

Let’s go into detail and check if your website or an application adheres to the a11y standards.

Answer “yes” or “no” to the questions below. Even one “no” puts you in a bind since a user can lawfully complain about it.

Accessibility checklist

Your site/app should be perceivable by sight, hearing, and/or touch

Is embedded multimedia identified via accessible text?
Do form buttons have a descriptive value?
Is a transcript of relevant audio content provided for non-live audio-only (audio podcasts, MP3 files, etc.)?
Is a transcript or audio description of relevant content provided for non-live video-only, unless the video is decorative?
Do text and images of text have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1?
Is at least 3:1 contrast provided in the various states (focus, hover, active, etc.) of author-customized interactive components?

Interface forms, controls, and navigation must be operable

Is all page functionality available using the keyboard, unless the functionality cannot be accomplished in any known way using a keyboard (e.g., free hand drawing)?
Is keyboard focus not locked or trapped at one particular page element? The user can navigate to and from all navigable page elements using only a keyboard.
Can one pause, stop, or hide automatically moving, blinking, or scrolling content (such as carousels, marquees, or animations) that lasts longer than 5 seconds?
Does page content not flash more than 3 times per second unless that flashing content is sufficiently small and the flashes are of low contrast and do not contain too much red?
Are multiple ways available to find other web pages on the site - at least two of: a list of related pages, table of contents, site map, site search, or list of all available web pages?
Is it visually apparent which page element has the current keyboard focus (i.e., as you tab through the page, you can see where you are)?
Can the functionality on your app be performed with a single point activation (such as activating a button), if multipoint or path-based gestures (such as pinching, swiping, or dragging across the screen) are not essential to the functionality?
Can the functionality that is triggered by moving the device (such as shaking or panning a mobile device) or by user movement (such as waving to a camera) be disabled and equivalent functionality is provided via standard controls like buttons?

Information and the operation of user interface is understandable

Is the language of the page identified using the HTML lang attribute (e.g., <html lang="en">)?
Are the elements that have the same functionality across multiple web pages consistently identified? For example, a search box at the top of the site should always be labeled the same way.
Are sufficient labels, cues, and instructions for required interactive elements provided via instructions, examples, properly positioned form labels, and/or fieldsets/legends?
Are significant HTML/XHTML validation/parsing errors avoided?

Have any doubts regarding your website’s accessibility?

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