Is your site ready for WCAG 2.1 AA?

One of the key elements of creating a user-friendly website is to make it equally available to all end-users, disregarding of physical or cognitive ability. This is a law by the European Union, forced in 2016, to increase web accessibility due to the growing digital society. Wide accessibility is underlying all of the work that we do and this page is a short introduction to why you always need to have accessibility in mind. 

2 billion people experience some form of disability

This number of people represents 15% of the world's population and every fifth person that visits your website. The term disability can be referred to multiple different types and degrees of impairment such as vision, cognition, hearing, speech, mobility, or psychosocial factors. 

4 key principles

There are some key principles in WCAG that all web content should follow. These principles are known as "POUR" and expects the webpage to be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Perceivable means that all information and UI content needs to be presented to the user in a way that they can fully understand. Operatable means that the UI has do be easy to navigate and can't require interaction-elements that are difficult to perform or understand. The third principle "understandable"  requires that the information is easy for the user to understand and "robust" means that all content needs to be explainable to a large variety of users. 

We have listed a few starter points below on how to make your webpage more accessible for all. 

• Your webpage must be easy to use
• All pictures shall be relevant to your content
• Easy to find contact information
• Avoid content that moves or have "cool" features
• Avoid disturbing sounds
• Provide an easy to use search functionality onsite.
• Make your site both web- and mobile-friendly
• Avoid pop-ups

You can read more about the EU and their view on web accessibility here.