What is Accessibility Compliance?
What is Accessibility Compliance?
Accessibility compliance refers to adhering to standards and guidelines that ensure digital products, services, and content are accessible to individuals with disabilities. This means removing barriers and creating inclusive experiences for everyone, regardless of their abilities.
Accessibility compliance targets a wide range of people with disabilities, including those with:
- Visual impairments (blindness, low vision)
- Hearing impairments (deafness, hard of hearing)
- Motor impairments (limited mobility)
- Cognitive impairments (learning disabilities, ADHD)
- Users with temporary disabilities (e.g., broken arm)
- Users with situational limitations (e.g., low bandwidth, noisy environment)
- Users with non-disabled preferences (e.g., listening to audio instead of reading text)
Why do you need Accessibility Compliance?
Investing in accessibility compliance is not just about fulfilling legal obligations; it’s about creating a more inclusive, user-friendly, and commercially successful digital experience for everyone. This directly impacts the ROI of the website
Consider the following ethical and practical reasons when making a decision about accessibility compliance:
- Inclusion and equal access: accessibility compliance ensures that people with disabilities have equal access to information, services, and opportunities. This promotes social justice and fosters a more inclusive society where everyone can participate fully.
- Diversity: By embracing accessibility, organizations demonstrate their commitment to diversity and inclusion, valuing all individuals regardless of their abilities.
- Legal requirements: In many countries, the law mandates accessibility compliance. There might be specific regulations governing accessibility standards for websites, mobile apps, and other digital products. Non-compliance can lead to legal repercussions and penalties.
- Wider market reach: With accessible products, you can reach a broader market segment that doesn’t filter out people with disabilities.
- Enhanced brand reputation: Being accessibility compliant shows your commitment to social responsibility and inclusivity.
Different Accessibility Compliances around the World
Digital Accessibility is taken very seriously across the world, and this is why there are different accessibility compliances for different parts of the world.
Though there isn’t yet a unified accessibility compliance standard globally, most countries base their accessibility regulations on the internationally recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Here’s a brief overview of accessibility compliance in some key countries:
Europe
- EU Accessibility Act (EAA): The European Union (EU) follows EAA to define accessibility requirements for public sector websites and mobile applications across the EU member states.
- Equality Act 2010: The United Kingdom follows this act for public sector websites and apps.
- Barrier-Free Information Technology Accessibility Regulation (BITV 2.0): Germany follows this standard to provide guidance around accessibility.
- Digital Republic Act (Loi pour une République numérique): France requires that public sector websites and mobile apps are compliant with this act.
North America
- Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973: United States applies this act to federal government websites and digital products.
- Standards and Guidelines for the Web (SGWC) and WCAG 2.1: Canada requires government websites and mobile apps to be compliant using these guidelines.
- Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA): It is a civil rights law in the US that prohibits discrimination based on disability and advocates inclusiveness.
- Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA): It is a provincial law in Ontario, Canada, that aims to make the province accessible for people with disabilities by setting standards for accessibility in various areas of daily life.
Asia
- Basic Act on the Formation of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society: Both public and private websites in Japan adhere to these guidelines.
- Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016: Indian government websites mention this act, but the adherence process is still evolving.
- Accessibility Guidelines for Internet Content and Services: Though these guidelines exist for China, enforcement differs across regions.
What are WCAG Guidelines for Accessibility Compliance of a Website?
WCAG compliance is based on the 4 Key Principles
- P- Perceivable
- O- Operable
- U- Understandable
- R- Robust
- Perceivable: Information and user interface components must be accessible to all users, regardless of sensory limitations.
- Operable: User interface components and navigation must be operable using different input methods and technologies.
- Understandable: Content and the user interface must be understandable and predictable.
- Robust: Content must be robust enough to be interpreted by a wide range of assistive technologies.
Learn More about Accessibility Testing
WCAG 2.0 has 12 guidelines classified under the 4 key Principles (POUR) discussed above. Each of these guidelines has success criteria defined under them based on the conformance levels. On the other hand, WCAG 2.1 is backward compatible with WCAG 2.0, with 1 additional guideline mentioned below:
| 1. | Perceivable | |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | Text Alternatives | Provide Text Alternatives to different non-text content forms so that it can be used by assistive technology such as screen readers, braille, large print, symbols, or easy language. |
| 1.2 | Time-based Media | Provide Captions, alternatives or audio descriptions for pre-recorded and live time-based media such as audio or video. |
| 1.3 | Adaptable | Create content that is adaptable to different forms without losing out on the information or its structure. |
| 1.4 | Distinguishable | Make content easier for the user to see and hear so that they can separate the foreground from the background. |
| 2. | Operable | |
| 2.1 | Keyboard Accessible | Make all the functionality of the website accessible from a keyboard without requiring specific timings for individual keystrokes. |
| 2.2 | Enough Time | Give enough time to the users to read and act on the content. |
| 2.3 | Seizures | Content design should not have anything that flashes more than 3 times to avoid causing seizures due to photosensitivity. |
| 2.4 | Navigable | Help users navigate through the workflows and webpages, find content, and determine where they are on the website. |
| 2.5 | Input Modalities (WCAG 2.1 & WCAG 2.2) | Make it easier for the users to operate functionalities using different inputs apart from the keyboard. |
| 3. | Understandable | |
| 3.1 | Readable | Create content that is readable and easy to understand using clear and simple language. |
| 3.2 | Predictable | Design content and pages in a predictable way, where users can easily predict how to operate. |
| 3.3 | Input Assitance | Help users provide correct information and correct mistakes through ways like clear instructions and error prevention techniques. |
| 4. | Robust | |
| 4.1 | Compatible | Create a website with maximum compatibility with the current and future user agents such as browsers, devices, and platforms, including assistive technologies. |
How to perform Accessibility compliance testing using BrowserStack Accessibility?
BrowserStack Accessibility Testing is a single platform to identify basic and complex accessibility compliance issues at blazing speed. It is a one-Stop Solution to
- Test,
- Report, and
- Monitor Web Accessibility.
Here’s a quick sneak peek of the BrowserStack Accessibility Tool
Use Workflow Scanner to Test Accessibility Compliance
You can test WCAG Compliance for your website using BrowserStack Accessibility Testing Tool. It provides core features to:
- Test any user workflow in a single scan using Workflow Scanner
- Identify complex accessibility issues by answering simple, auto-generated questions using Assisted Tests
- Precisely locate issue sources using Screen Readers on Real Devices
You can run Workflow Scanner to Scan user flows across full page scan or test part of a page for accessibility. Use the Workflow scanner to automatically identify and report basic issues such as missing alt text, insufficient color contrast, among others at blazing speed.
Try BrowserStack Accessibility Testing
You can use Workflow Scanner by following the below steps:
- Install the Accessibility Toolkit extension to your browser.
- Open the page that you want to test for compliance.
- If using Chrome, right-click the page and then click Inspect > Accessibility Toolkit.
- Under Workflow Scanner, click Full page scan or Part of the page.
The scanner starts the scan and detects the accessibility issues on the page. It shows the following tabs:- Issue summary: Shows the number of issues and severity breakdown of the issues.
- Workflow log: Shows the scan history.
- Interact with the page or navigate to other pages to identify accessibility issues in the user workflows. The scanner keeps running until you click Stop.
Report Accessibility Compliance Issues
BrowserStack Accessibility Testing Tool provides you access to all reports from the past and present on one single dashboard. Combine multiple reports into one in seconds, and use insightful issue summaries to better inform debugging.
You can create Accessibility Reports by following the below steps:
- Launch the Accessibility Testing dashboard.
- In the navigation menu, click Manual test reports. The Manual test reports page lists all the accessibility test reports for Workflow Scan and Assisted Test runs.
- In the list of reports, find the test report you want to view. You can search a report by its name or the user who generated the report. You can also filter the list according to the testing method used to generate the report.
- Click the report you want to view. The report contains two tabs: Summary and All issues.
- To share the report, click the Share link. Click Export to share the report in a CSV file.
You can also select multiple reports to create a consolidated report that can be shared or exported as a CSV file.
Monitor Accessibility Compliance using Website Scanner
Schedule Website Scan for WCAG Compliance Now
Best Practices for Accessibility Compliance Testing
Here are some of the Best Practices to implement Accessibility Compliance testing effectively:
- Identify the abilities and needs of your diverse users, including those with disabilities.
- Combine manual testing with automated tools for comprehensive accessibility coverage and enhanced accuracy.
- Establish accessibility policy and guidelines.
- Use screen readers, keyboard navigation, and other tools to understand the experience of users with disabilities.
- Involve people with disabilities in your testing process for valuable feedback.
- Integrate Accessibility testing throughout the software development process and train teams about accessibility compliances.
- Keep updated on accessibility standards and make accessibility a core value to software development.
- Monitor accessibility on a regular basis to ensure accessibility compliance requirements are duly met.
Conclusion
The decision to use an accessibility compliance tool depends on your specific needs, resources, and goals. Not only from a social responsibility perspective, but also from ROI standpoint, accessibility compliance must be duly followed.
Considering the potential benefits of web accessibility, it’s worth exploring how tools, such as BrowserStack Accessibility, can enhance your accessibility efforts and make your digital products more inclusive for everyone.
