Published: 28 Jul 2020

Growing Prominence of Website Accessibility in Recent Times

Last Updated: 21 Jul 2022

• Accessibility Testing
  

Content 1. What is Website Accessibility? 2. What does WCAG compliance stand for? 3. How do you get your websites and web apps become accessible to all? 4. Web Accessibility Testing Benefits for your Websites and Apps 5. Conclusion 6. Why should you choose TestingXperts for your accessibility testing projects? 7. How does Tx Perform the Accessibility Testing?

What is Website Accessibility?

Website accessibility is most important today for businesses as the web and mobile mediums continue to have surge in their usage by people of all ages. Accessibility is truly no longer optional and is rather a mandate for businesses to follow for their websites and apps. This ensures people with disabilities such as color blindness, hearing impairment, cognitive disabilities, etc. to access the services, features and content on the web and also on the mobile apps.

According to Ontario.ca, “Beginning January 1, 2021: all public websites and web content posted after January 1, 2012 must meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA other than criteria 1.2.4 (live captions) and 1.2.5 (pre-recorded audio descriptions).” It is rather a compliance as it is necessary for the people with disabilities to be able to access website content which includes any information that is found on the web page or web app, including text, images, forms and even sounds.

What does WCAG compliance stand for?

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) guidelines are internationally accepted standards for web accessibility and have been developed by World Wide Web (WWW) team of experts.  These guidelines define how to make web content accessible to people with disabilities including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning and for people with neurological disabilities.

WCAG 2.0

WCAG 2.0 is categorized into 3 levels of conformance with A the lowest level, AA as mid-range and AAA as the highest level. It is a mandate today that web accessibility is primarily considered as a priority for all digital projects and should be made complaint with these much essential guidelines.

This compliance has been clearly mentioned in a Forbes article on Website Accessibility, which states that individuals with disabilities represent a large portion of the population.

In real sense, the website accessibility refers to the process of making the web accessible to all people or to everyone irrespective of their disabilities to ensure they can also make use of all/most of features of the applications.

In another study, researchers found that 71% of individuals with disabilities will abandon a website that’s difficult to use. This results in an estimated loss of £11.75 billion (or approximately $14.4 billion) each year in the United Kingdom alone.

How do you get your websites and web apps become accessible to all?

It is a prime social responsibility for organizations and businesses to ensure your applications are accessible to differently abled population. Organizations can become WCAG complaint by adopting web accessibility testing to standardize their applications accessibility for impaired vision, color blindness, blindness, deafness, hard-of-hearing, moto impairment, mobility impairment, etc.

Another data from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that nearly one in five people are living with a diagnosed disability, and more than half of those with a disability describe their condition as severe.

Primarily, there is a compliance involved in this accessibility as when companies deny equal access of their website or when their website becomes incompatible with a screen reader or has any other accessibility issues, then such companies become liable to law suits.

Web Accessibility Testing Benefits for your Websites and Apps

Ensures people with disabilities to quick and easy access:

The most important benefit with accessibility testing is that it ensures the website content, product, services and all features are easily accessible to people with disabilities.

Enables an opportunity to expand your user base:

With an improved website and mobile app access, it definitely leads to an increase in the number of users accessing your website. Specifically, for such highly accessible websites, everyone irrespective of their disabilities can access such websites and perform their operations in a simple and easy way. According to an article by Bureau of Internet Accessibility, disabilities come in many different forms, including hearing disabilities, visual disabilities, motor disabilities, and cognitive disabilities. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that 1 in 4 U.S. adults is living with a disability.

Facilitates to build positive brand response:

If your website becomes WCAG accessibility compliant, then people with some or the other disabilities would use these fully complaint websites and apps. They would also recommend your brand to other acquaintances, their friends and other connections. In this way there is more chance for improving your brand visibility and this sort of good brand building would be more profitable for eCommerce sites.

Helps improve usability for visitors of all types:

Many usability problems of various users can also be identified with accessibility testing and it makes easier access of content, features, products and services of the website and mobile apps to various types of users who visit such websites.

Helps improve search engine optimization:

Another remarkable benefit with web accessibility testing is that if the website is accessible, then it makes the website more usable. It is also more likely to improve the website rankings and is bound to drive more traffic with higher SEO rankings.

Ensures to avoid legal complications:

Though most businesses are not intentionally discriminating disabled people, but they can be subject to legal complications with respect to web accessibility. But, if your website is WCAG compliant, then you can avoid any further legal complications.

Conclusion

Web accessibility has become a norm for businesses in the recent times and they should make their websites and applications WCAG complaint. This sort of web accessibility helps people with various types of disabilities such as color blindness, hearing impairment, cognitive disability, etc. to be able to access websites that are made compatible with these regulations. Web accessibility testing by specialized testing services provider can be leveraged to ensure your website is made accessible to people with disabilities.

Why should you choose TestingXperts for your accessibility testing projects?

– We make sure your application is accessible by bringing it in-line with W3C’s WCAG 1.0/WCAG 2.0, BITV 1.0, Section 508 & Stanca Act.

– Exposure to industry leading tools for Accessibility testing – JAWS (Job Access with Speech), AChecker, WAVE & Web Acc Checker

– Preparing detailed test plans and test scenarios to capture requirements effectively

– Teams of experts, including differently-abled, who perform accessibility testing in software testing

How does Tx Perform the Accessibility Testing?

– Conduct team interactions with clients and set ready participants of website or for other applications

– Onboard users with a range of disabilities based on the product to be tested

– Perform a POC to find any issues/bugs that might exist with the testing protocol

– Conduct tests from usability perspective and via remote testing also

– Finally analyzing and prioritizing of findings are done and recommendations delivered