Raising Awareness for Web Accessibility [Infographic] — International Day of Persons with Disabilities
Last December 3 we celebrated the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. This day aims to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society and development, and to increase awareness of the situation of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.
One of the rights of persons with disabilities is the right to access information and communications technologies.
“Promote access for persons with disabilities to new information and communications technologies and systems, including the Internet.”
International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
The Web is for everyone and everyone should be able to access it, regardless of their abilities. To help promote a more accessible Web we’ve put together an easy-to-digest infographic about Web Accessibility.
🇬🇧 English Version — Web Accessibility PDF
🇵🇹 Versão Portuguesa — Acessibilidade Web PDF
Infographic as text only:
WEB ACCESSIBILITY — Creating accessible digital experiences for everyone
What is web accessibility?
Websites, apps and web tools that can be used by everyone, regardless of their ability.
It means everyone is able to:
- Perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the web
- Contribute to the Web
1 Billion people in the world live with a disability. That equals the population of the Americas.
- 2.2 billion people have a near or distance vision impairment
- 430 million people have a disabling hearing loss
- 46% of older people aged 60 years and over are people with disabilities
5 Types of disabilities
Visual
- Blindness
- Low vision
- Colour blindness
Auditory
- Mild or moderate hearing loss
- Deafness
Cognitive
- Epilepsy
- Alzheimer’s
- Dyslexia
- Autism
Physical
- Missing limbs
- Limitations of muscular control
Speech
- Muteness
- Stuttering
- Apraxia of speech
Who benefits from an accessible website?
People with limitations:
- Permanent — Someone with one arm
- Temporary — Someone with a broken arm
- Situational — Someone holding a baby
Designing for people with permanent disabilities actually results in designs that benefit people universally.
5 Reasons to act
- Don’t discriminate — Companies with accessible products/services don’t exclude people from using them
- Maximise target audience — People with disabilities are also people with purchasing power
- Stand out from the competition — If a website is not accessible, users will quickly turn to one that is
- Boost SEO — Accessible websites have better results in search engines
- Legal compliance — In many countries having an accessible website is required by law
However most websites are still not accessible
- 9 out of 10 websites have accessibility failures
- 18% of pages have ambiguous link text, like “click here” or “more”
- 23.2% of all home page images have missing alternative text
- 39% form inputs are not properly labeled
How to make an accessible website?
Use sufficient contrast — People with low vision find it difficult to read text without enough contrast against the background
Don’t rely on colour to communicate — Colour blind people won’t be able to understand if an error is displayed in red
Provide a text alternative for images — Using the <alt> element, so that people who use screen readers listen the content of the image
Caption and transcribe videos — Audio descriptions allow blind people to get the visual information necessary to understand the content
Ensure keyboard accessibility — Someone who’s unable to use the mouse must be able to use the keyboard to access and move between links, buttons, forms and other controls
Sources:
- Inclusive Microsoft Design
- INR (Census 2011)
- WCAG
- WebAIM
Want to offer a service accessible to everyone?
Xperienz can help you assess if all users can navigate and complete the necessary tasks on your website, app or digital tool.
We perform accessibility audits to access compliance with WCAG guidelines, identifying errors and providing a possible resolution so they can be easily addressed by your team. We also conduct usability tests with users with disabilities to identify possible needs, difficulties or obstacles when using the website.
