Digital accessibility: a mediation to all audiences.

We are not all equal to the web! According to a survey by INSEE, people with disabilities represent between 10 and 20% of the population … That’s why Friday, February 8, we received David Monnehay, digital accessibility expert at Atalan on the occasion of our 8th “Experts” breakfast-meetup !

The slightest gesture of everyday life seems compromised in certain situations. Promoting social inclusion is one of the key tasks of our time to avoid discrimination, to allow access to information, but also to satisfy all of its users.

Digital accessibility, what is it?

Its role is to make access to digital information possible, regardless of the nature of people’s disabilities and how information is accessed. It concerns different technologies such as the web, videos, office documents, digital television or even mobile telephony.

It is a question of allowing the greatest number of users to access its contents without difficulty! For example, the visitor can navigate with voice synthesizers (or Braille tracks especially used by blind or visually impaired Internet users); or customize the display of the application according to its needs (magnification of characters, changing colors and contrasts) …

For who ?

- Hearing impairments: deafness, misunderstanding …

- motor impairments: quadriplegia, sclerosis, arthritis …

- Cognitive impairments: Dyslexia, photosensitivity, attention deficit disorder …

Everyone faces a real obstacle course for tasks that are part of our daily lives. Better understanding the needs of a person with disabilities makes it possible to realize that simple changes allow a better reading of all! For that :

• Atalan has created a site that allows you to understand the result of handicaps on a digital interface. We highly recommend it for its interactivity and advice: https://www.atalan.fr/agissons/en/index.html
• The Funkify plug-in allows you to understand what would give the page viewed from the point of view of different disabilities.
• iOS and Android offer powerful integrated features for people with disabilities: screen reader, voice control, character enlargement …

What are the legal obligations?

Today, a site accessible to all is not an option: it has become an obligation framed by the law both in France and abroad!

Internationally :
In 1997: The Web Accessibility Initiative is put in place. It leads to international standards of digital accessibility, which explain how to make an accessible website. WAI’s main mission is to provide technical solutions to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities. These recommendations are called Accessibility Guidelines for Web Content or Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

In France :
There is, among other things, the law of February 11, 2005 for equal rights and opportunities, the participation and citizenship of people with disabilities (decree published on May 14, 2009). This is an implementation of accessibility within two years (from the publication of the decree) for the public online communication services of the State and the public institutions that depend on it, and three years for the public online communication services of local authorities and the public institutions that depend on them.

In addition, since 2009, the General Accessibility Repository for Administrations (RGAA) has made it possible to gradually make all the information provided on the administrative and public Internet sites accessible. It is largely inspired by WCAG’s international standards. It defines the criteria and different levels of accessibility of the websites. Today there are three *:

A — what needs to be done

Remove obstructive barriers to access to content → All information is available and accessible but arbitration is often done on the most restrictive criteria to be made accessible, such as videos by examples.

AA — What should be done

Raises other significant barriers → The accessibility of the site is optimized to improve the user consultation comfort. This is the legal level to reach;)

AAA — What can be done

Improves the comfort of access → Required for sites whose targets, most of which are people with disabilities.

If you want to find out about your digital accessibility or upgrade yourself by being accompanied, you can get closer to a specialized company like Atalan, which will intervene as an expert in your projects;)

*The explanation of these 3 levels of regulation has been taken from the CNED’s White Paper on the inclusion of disability and digital accessibility, page 16.