An introduction to online accessibility standards

Disability icons: hearing, low vision, AD, sign language, blindness, physical disability, cc, information

This is the first post of an ongoing series on accessibility for online communications. In the coming weeks, we’ll address the fundamentals of what it means to be accessible in your online communications, why it matters, and what you absolutely need to know when working with designers and developers.

In today’s digital world, 30% of the web-browsing population has some form of disability. Providing accessible content online should therefore be a goal for organizations and companies. In fact, it is now the law for most public sectors and the private sector isn’t far behind.

The unfortunate irony is that much-needed information on accessibility, including the mother of all guidelines, WCAG 2.0, is itself inaccessible in terms of ease of understanding. Unless you’re familiar with the concepts, technology and terms, you’re in for some serious head scratching.

For us designers and developers, we actually have to produce work that is accessible, so the real proof of concept is not just whether we’ve checked off line items of WCAG 2.0, but whether people with disabilities can actually fully access our work.

The audience

The first logical step towards catering content to any audience is to understand them. Their goals, their limitations and the tools they use to access online content provide a clear profile that helps us cater content to them.

Here are a few broad examples of some of the disabilities audiences may have:

Visual Impairment
Hearing Impairment
Reading Disorder
Learning Disorder
Motor skill problems
Seizures/Migraines

Different types of disabilities have assistive technologies or adaptive strategies to navigate the web. They include:

Keyboard (instead of a mouse)
Keyboard and mouse alternatives
Screen readers
Screen magnifiers
Voice recognition programs
Tools to help with low vision, learning disabilities, contrast, etc.

Because disabilities can cover a wide gamut, providing accessible content for the largest common denominator is crucial. The fundamental categories of accessible guidelines that govern the digital world as dictated by WCAG 2.0, are summarized by them in the table below. Once you grasp what limitations your audience may have and the tools they use to mitigate, these main concepts will make sense. You can start to see the scaffolding that accessibility concepts are built on and why.

Perceivable

Information and user interface must be presented to users in a way they can perceive:

Provide text alternatives for non-text content
Provide captions and other alternatives for multimedia
Create content that can be presented in different ways, including by assistive technologies, without losing meaning
Make it easier for users to see and hear content