(How) Do you know if your website or mobile app is accessible?
Only people with disabilities can tell you if your website or mobile app is accessible and usable to them, but there are also international technical standards that can often indicate if website or mobile app has obvious accessibility issues.
European Accessibility Act does not define exact technical standard, but it mentions that content needs to be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust (POUR).
POUR - Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust - come again?
POUR is a set of principles that form the foundation of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and EN 301 549 (Europe's accessibility standard that incorporates WCAG 2.1 on levels A and AA at the moment).
These principles ensure that content is accessible to most users possible, including those with different disabilities and using different assistive technologies
Perceivable principle
The Perceivable principle WCAG ensures that content can be consumed by all users, including those with visual, auditory, or cognitive impairments. This involves providing text alternatives for images, captions and transcripts for multimedia, offering content in multiple formats, and using clear visual and auditory presentation methods.
Key steps include adding descriptive alt text, ensuring captions and transcripts are accurate, using high-contrast colors, and allowing users to customize text size and playback settings.
Operable principle
The Operable principle of WCAG ensures that users can navigate and interact with a website using various input methods, including keyboards, voice commands, and adaptive devices.
Key aspects include keyboard accessibility, providing enough time for users to engage with content, avoiding seizure-inducing elements, ensuring clear navigation, and supporting multiple input modalities. Best practices involve logical tab order, visible focus indicators, time extension options, consistent site structure, and testing with users who rely on assistive technologies.
Understandable principle
The Understandable principle of WCAG ensures that users can easily comprehend content and interact with a website predictably.
This includes clear language, input assistance, and predictable design, helping users navigate without confusion. Best practices involve providing clear form instructions, autocomplete suggestions, helpful error messages, consistent layouts, and predictable interactive elements to enhance usability.
Robust principle
The Robust principle of WCAG ensures that content remains accessible across various assistive technologies and future tools.
This involves using semantic HTML on the web and mobile, clean code, and testing for compatibility with different browsers, devices, and assistive technologies. Best practices include structuring content properly, user-testing with diverse disabilities, and staying updated on web accessibility standards to ensure long-term usability.
How to find out it your website or mobile application is POUR?
You need to understand how to apply WCAG and EN 301 549 to your website or mobile application. There are no shortcuts!
Tools exist, but can only scratch the surface.
Accessibility experts, together with people with disabilities are the most effective way to discover accessibility issues and to teach you how to fix them most effectively.
Therefore - if you don't know or are not sure if your website or mobile app is accessible and usable to people with disabilities, we can help you.
Get Your Free Accessibility Analysis Website or mobile application needs to be tested by experts and people with disabilities
There are no shortcuts! Sure, there are some tools that can help you, but accessibility tools only scratch the surface.
Our expert led manual and semi-automated accessibility analysis, extended with usability testing with people with disabilities will provide you with actionable insights to ensure you will be better prepared for European Accessibility Act (EAA).
Our experts are certified by International Association of Accessibility Professionals and experienced in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and EN 301 549. This assures us to deliver best value to your organization and can support you in your journey to accessibility.
Even if you are not in the scope of European Accessibility Act, we can still help you improve your website or app's accessibility and usability to reach more people and improve your business.
Accessibility is not a nice to have - it is good for people and good for business!
With more than 95% of top websites not accessible - and when we consider the fact that on average 1 in 7 people have a permanent disability - it is clear that accessibility is not just a potential legal obligation, but will also help you reach and retain more people.
Do you know that we all need accessibility?
You need to be aware of the fact that accessibility is not just about people with permanent disabilities - it is actually about everyone.
We can all be disabled by our environment, technology, and our own limitations, at any time. And this can mean that if websites and apps are not accessible, we may not be able to use them - and will prefer ones that are.
Accessibility of your website or mobile app will make your advertisment more effective
What is the point of spending money on advertisment if people then cannot use your website or app?
We are confident we can help you improve your website or app's accessibility and usability and encourage you to make your website or app accessible to people with disabilities.
Get Your Free Accessibility Analysis first, so that we can demonstrate our expertise and provide you with immediate value. Then you can decide if you want to proceed with the full analysis.