Event report: What is digital accessibility?

On November 13, senior content designer Helen Glavina presented the webinar “What Is Digital Accessibility — and Why Should You Care?”

Digital or online accessibility means that people with disabilities can interact equally with website content and tools. Over a billion people worldwide deal with disabilities or impairments; deficits needing accommodation could be the result of visual, speech, auditory, physical, cognitive, or neurological conditions. Most of us, if we live long enough, will experience several of these deficits. Accessible content benefits everybody!

Accommodations exist for a wide range of different abilities that affect how people interact with the web. The internationally accepted standards for web content accessibility are set out in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) produced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community that develops web standards.

Core accessibility principles

The WCAG guidelines describe core principles and different levels of compliance. The core principle “POUR” states that content must be:

• Perceivable.
• Operable.
• Understandable.
• Robust (lending itself to a range of assistive devices).

Content creators can choose to meet one or more levels of compliance:

A — Baseline (minimum compliance).
AA — Acceptable level of compliance.
AAA — Optimal level of compliance.

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) mandates compliance with WCAG. If people in Ontario will be using your website, it must comply with the requirements of the AODA. Other jurisdictions that recognize the necessity of accessible content include the European Union, the USA, and most members of the United Nations.

How do you know your content is accessible?

• Can someone with dexterity limitations navigate by keyboard alone?
• Are there traps where someone relying on a keyboard can get stuck?
• Do you provide subtitles or transcripts for all audio content?
• Do you structure and tag your content so that people with low vision can navigate it using a screen reader, a braille reader, or other device?
• Is there sufficient contrast between text and surrounding background for people with low vision?
• Can people with colour blindness distinguish text and other significant elements on your web pages and other content?
• Do all your images have alternative (alt) text that screen readers can detect and announce to their users?

Common accessibility failures, in order of frequency, include the following:

1. Low context text.
2. Missing alt text for images.
3. Empty links.
4. Missing form-input labels.
5. Empty buttons.
6. Missing document language.

Accessibility tips

• Do not use tables for formatting (for example, to create a two-column page). Automated screen readers will misinterpret it. Use tables only for tabular data.
• If you present information in a table, use a table heading and a caption.
• Use alt text for links, but only if it is not redundant. If the context is clear, alt text for links is not needed.
• Include alt text for all images, unless the image is decorative, in which case label it as decoration.
• Avoid using images of text.
• Use accessibility tools to make your work easier. Content creation software, such as Madcap Flare, Word, Adobe, and Power Point, often includes an accessibility checker. Microsoft Teams has a live captioning feature and Camtasia provides speech-to-text. You can also find accessibility tools and plug-ins online.

Good technical writing is essential, but not necessarily sufficient, for accessibility.

Missed the webinar?
STC members and students: Register here to watch the webinar for free.
Non-STC members: Register here to watch the webinar for $25.