Digital accessibility is design of technology products and environments to help people with various disabilities not be impeded or otherwise unable to partake in use of the service, product or function.
In 1990, the United States Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which mandates that public and private spaces must be made accessible to individuals with sensory, cognitive and physical impairments or limitations. Digital accessibility is an extension of ADA principles to the use of assistive or adaptive technology. For example, closed captioning of video helps deaf and hard-of-hearing people read what is being said, and audiobooks turn text to speech to assist blind or partially sighted people.
Due to the influence of the World Wide Web, a separate initiative called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) was launched in 1999. WCAG is a set of recommendations for making web content more accessible to people with disabilities and includes a guide for organizations on how to be compliant with WCAG standards.
However, just because the initiatives exist, that doesn't mean companies always adhere to them. A 2022 study by Web AIM ran accessibility analyses of more than 1 million websites and found that more than 96.8% of homepages violated some aspect of the WCAG. Violations included low contrast text, missing text alternatives for images, buttons without text and empty links.
There are multiple reasons why digital accessibility should be a guiding principle to technology and website design, ranging from legal to moral, including the following:
The following four principles of web accessibility under the WCAG are known by the acronym POUR and are the foundations for accessible web content.
If any of these four principles is not adhered to, the website will be inaccessible to users with disabilities.
A few common examples digital accessibility for a well-designed website include the following:
Image alt text. Screen readers and other assistive technologies read the text on a screen but cannot read images. Anything that is graphical in nature needs to have a complete text alternative, such as a description of the picture or reading text embedded in the picture. This can be vital for explanatory images or flowcharts, schematics, graphs, maps, menu buttons, infographics and slides.
Keyboard accessibility. A disabled person may use a keyboard to navigate instead of a mouse. A website should be completely accessible via keyboard using tabs to move between sections to menus, across form fields and links and to other content areas in a predictable, logical manner.
Sequential heading structure. Page headings aren't just design elements, but are also critical for navigation and content organization. Headings should be coded with actual heading elements and nested in a hierarchy that organizes and presents the content as it's intended to be read and understood.
Properly formatted hyperlinks. Hyperlinks can be a challenge for both disabled and nondisabled users, such as light linking color. Proper linking can be one of the most critical elements for all users. Users requiring reading assistance devices commonly scan for identifiable hyperlinks, which don't always show up. A properly formatted hyperlink needs the following three components:
Consistent navigation. Each page on a website should provide a consistent user experience (UX) by using the same or similar design, layout and navigational controls from page to page. This helps people use a website with confidence of a consistent experience and without unnecessary error. It's important to position repeated navigation links in the same location on each page, including skip links, and use icons and control elements consistently.
As of this writing, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has not officially extended digital accessibility regulations to the ADA, and instead has still has a longstanding position that the ADA covers digital accessibility.
However, other legislation can be seen through of the lens of digital accessibility. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires that federal departments and agencies make reasonable efforts to provide information via systems that are equally accessible to disabled people. If they cannot do so, they must provide individuals with disabilities with an alternative means for equivalent access to the information and data that those information systems provide. Access available to individuals with disabilities must be comparable to access available to others.
The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CCVA) of 2010 amended the Communications Act of 1934 to include updated requirements for ensuring the accessibility of modern telecommunications to people with disabilities. In the bill, Title I imposes accessibility standards on "advanced" telecommunications products and services, while Title II imposes various requirements on the accessibility of televisions, television services, and television programming, as well as streaming video.
The European Union has its own legislation, known as Directive (EU) 2016/2102, a standardization of accessibility laws across the EU that went into effect in 2016. A directive is a legal act of the European Union, which requires member states to achieve a particular result without dictating the means of achieving that result.
According to the 2021 State of Accessibility Report (SOAR) conducted by website developer Diamond, more than 90% of the world's websites do not meet even the minimum requirements for accessibility established by the standards of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Organizations can promote and support digital accessibility with the following best practices:
07 Jul 2022