Everything you need to know about web accessibility

This will be the first in a series of web accessibility articles because there is so much to cover regarding website accessibility.

In this article, we'll be covering the following:

• What is website accessibility, and why is it important?
• What is assistive technology?
• The laws and requirements around website accessibility
• What are the risks of not complying with the law?
• What type of content must be accessible on your website?
• Attitudes toward disabilities

Before you go any further, ask yourself: Do you know how many of your website users have accessibility needs?

More and more businesses are now recognising the importance of web accessibility, including ours. At CIH, we are committed to improving equality, diversity and inclusion, ensuring our website is accessible to everyone.

So what is web accessibility?

Web accessibility is a way of designing websites, tools, and technologies so that everyone, including people with disabilities, can use them as efficiently as possible.

There are several different types of disabilities with a range of different needs to consider when building or enhancing a website's accessibility:

It is worth noting that while sight and hearing disabilities are talked about most regarding web accessibility, people with cognitive disabilities represent the largest number of internet users with disabilities, according to the National Center on Disability and Access to Education. Because these types of disabilities contain a wide range of nuanced conditions and an even wider range of severity, it is difficult to present a comprehensive set of accessibility standards. From a web development perspective, it is better to think about cognitive disorders from a purely functional standpoint and focus on removing barriers to improve the user experience.

774 million people in the world cannot read or write, and 10% of people have a learning disability, so reading content online can be a challenge for some people.?

What is assistive technology?

When optimising your website for users with disabilities, it is important to understand what issues they may encounter depending on their assistive technology. When talking about assistive devices that aid visitors with disabilities, the first device that comes to people's minds is a screen reader. A screen reader is a software that reads pages aloud to people with blindness, low vision, or severe dyslexia. While screen readers are a vital assistive device, they are by no means the only ones.

Examples of assistive technology:

• Screen reader
• Reading support; online ruler, reading mask to eliminate distraction, magnifier, dictionary and thesaurus, margins
• Styling support; text size and colour, website background colour, font type, text-only modes
• On-demand translation

Did you know that 70% of sites checked for website accessibility were seen to have a serious lack of accessibility?

Laws and requirements

Website accessibility is not just a nice to have in the UK – it's a legal requirement for both public and private sector organisations. While countries have different laws for accessibility, many – including the UK – base their legislation on the international golden standard for web accessibility, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). WCAG explains how to make your website more accessible to people with disabilities.

It is estimated that 1 in 10 people have dyslexia

To be accessible to all users and comply with UK web accessibility laws, UK websites should be coded and designed to meet WCAG's web accessibility principles. There are four of these, often referred to as POUR:

• Perceivable:?All users should be able to accurately see and read your website content. That means content must not exclude people with vision, hearing, and other disabilities.
• Operable:?Website content should be responsive and simple to navigate for all users, for example, using keyboard-only commands to navigate a website rather than a mouse.
• Understandable:?Website interfaces and information should be organised in a way that makes them easy to use, predictable to navigate and contain language understandable to all users.
• Robust:?Websites should be compatible wide a wide range of technology, including assistive technology tools commonly used by users with disabilities.

What are the risks of not complying with the law?

Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018:?When it comes to the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations, the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) is responsible for monitoring public sector website compliance. It can request information and demand access to any public sector organisation's web content – intranet and public-facing materials. If a public sector body fails to publish an accessibility statement on its website – or one that is inaccurate – the CCDO will publish the organisation's name.

Actual law enforcement falls under the Equality and Human Rights Commission (except in Northern Ireland). It has the power to investigate non-compliant organisations and initiate legal action against them.

Equality Act 2010:?As of now, no organisations have been successfully taken to court under the Equality Act. Several discrimination cases against non-compliant websites have been brought forward by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and settled out of court.

What type of content must be accessible on your website?

As the standard for web accessibility in the UK is WCAG 2.1 Level AA, your website should align with its requirements for web accessibility. The following WCAG accessibility best practices should be considered when creating content.

• Alternative text:?Images and other non-text content should have added descriptive alternative text (alt text) so a screen reader can read them. Alt text also helps search engines understand your non-text content better.
• Keyboard navigation:?All website functionality should be available using a keyboard only.
• Semantic markup:?A logical page structure using semantic markup to designate headings, lists and other structural elements. For example, headings should be identified as an H1, then structured in a sensible way – H1, followed by H2 and then H3.
• Tables:?Data tables need extra markup. Add row and column header cells to make them accessible to screen readers.
• Instructions:?Instructions to complete a task should not rely on sound, shape, size or visual location.
• Descriptive links:?Using generic link text like 'learn more' and 'click here' provide no context to screen reader users. All link text should therefore make sense when read in isolation.
• Forms:?To ensure everyone can submit a form, they must be labelled properly, including text fields, dropdown lists and checkboxes.
• Videos and audio:?A text equivalent, such as captions or transcripts, should accompany multimedia content.
• PDFs:?PDF files need to be tagged to make them accessible.
• Colour:?You must not rely on colour alone to signify meaning. Using colour to convey meaning, you should also include a text alternative.
• Readability:?Use accessible fonts, format copy logically with headings that enable skimming and write at a level that matches your target audience for optimal comprehension.
• Skip elements:?Include a skip navigation link. This helps users with assistive technology skip repetitive elements on a page to read faster.
• Titles:?Page titles should be descriptive and informative.
• Contrast:?Text and text images have a sufficient colour contrast ratio for low-vision users.
• Text:?No loss of functionality or content should occur when the text is zoomed in on.
• Seizure triggers:?Do not use blinking or flashing content.

This list is just a selection of accessibility recommendations. To see the complete list of WCAG 2.1 requirements and techniques for achieving them,?visit the WCAG guidelines.

Attitudes to disability

Attitudes to disability affect how people think about accessibility. And how much they care about inclusion.

• 60% of people underestimate how many disabled people there are
• 75% of people think of disabled people in general as needing to be cared for
• 32% believe disabled people are not as productive as non-disabled people
• 13% hardly ever or never think of disabled people as the same as everyone else

Changing attitudes to inspire social change and inclusive working culture is essential. Disabled people have so much untapped potential due to other people's attitudes.

Upcoming website accessibility series

Over the next few weeks, I'll be exploring the following in a series of articles and posts on LinkedIn; make sure you keep an eye out:

• Testing for accessibility issues - where to start
• What are the fundamentals of web accessibility?
• The overlap of SEO and website accessibility
• How to be more accessible on social media?
• The future of website accessibility?

References and related links