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Reading text and navigating websites is not nearly as obvious to everyone. The same goes for watching and listening to videos. For those with physical, sensory or cognitive disabilities, standard websites are more daunting than inviting. For them, digital accessibility is hugely important.
People with disabilities comprise about 20% of the European population. Moreover, the growing aging population means that by 2020, some 120 million Europeans will have age-related disabilities. This is why more and more organizations are choosing to follow the WCAG guidelines for content on the Web. But what do they mean and is it wise to set up your website according to these web guidelines?
WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. This is a set of guidelines created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the same nonprofit that also set the standards for HTML, CSS and XML.
These progressive guidelines make websites more accessible to people with disabilities. The first version, WCAG 1.0, was created in 1999, and version 2.0 was released in 2009. WCAG 2.1, which took mobile devices in particular into account, came out in 2018.
Did you know that 8% of men are color blind? Fun fact: only half a percent of women suffer from color blindness. So you see; more people benefit from WCAG than you might expect at first glance. No wonder the government, wanting to provide clear information to as many residents as possible, is confidently betting on WCAG 2.1.
The WCAG guidelines do not only take into account people who are visually impaired, for example because they are (partially) blind. The rules also make it easier for people with physical disabilities, cognitive impairments, language problems or learning disabilities to consume online content. Finally, these guidelines also consider people who work in noisy environments or have a slow Internet connection (for example, on an oil rig).
The differences between the penultimate version of WCAG (2.0) and WCAG 2.1 are mainly calculated for the explosion of mobile devices. Therefore, websites should be equally accessible in landscape and portrait. Navigation menus should also be collapsible without a mouse. When someone fills out a form or adds an item to a shopping cart, a site should display a status message so the user knows what changes. Also, the accessible name, the piece of code that describes buttons, search boxes and images to speech-enabled browsers, must be the same as the text on, in or near them for sighted users.
The latest version of this document, WCAG 2.1, was published in 2018. It is organized according to four principles that in turn contain a set of guidelines:
The guidelines are testable by success criteria. These determine at what level the website meets the latest WCAG rules.
Websites can achieve WCAG 2.1 compliance at three different levels. In increasing degrees of difficulty, these are called A, AA and AAA. Requirements at levels A and AA are mandatory for Dutch (semi-)government websites.
Several initiatives in the Netherlands already apply the rules of WCAG 2.1: all kinds of municipalities, Thuiswinkel.org, 9292.nl and some provinces. A hallmark has also been created for it, and the Accessibility Foundation is a widely consulted source of knowledge for those who want to apply the guidelines themselves.
Websites designed according to WCAG 2.0 or 2.1 guidelines can apply for inspection from the Drempvrij.nl Foundation. If sites are found to meet the guidelines at any of the three levels, they are allowed to display the corresponding hallmark. This is how visitors see (or hear) that this site has broad accessibility.
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Threshold-free level 1 green logo without stars |
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Threshold-free level 2 green logo with 2 stars |
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Threshold-free level 3 green logo with 3 stars |
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Part of site meets orange logo |
The registry of authenticators now includes mostly government agencies and insurers, but it is expected that more and more private sector companies will start making their websites low profile. It is also not inconceivable that Google will factor WCAG compliance into its ranking factors.