Ensuring that your website is accessible to everyone is a challenge often overlooked by developers and designers alike. Luckily a Sitecore build gives you all the tools you need to succeed.
Many non-profit, government and crown corporations are required to meet online accessibility requirements for people with physical disabilities, including vision loss, blindness, hearing loss and those who may have difficulty accessing web content the way the general public can.
The standards and legislation vary from region to region, but typically align to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG). Examples include:
- Rehabilitation Act – Section 508 (United
- Standard on Web Accessibility (Canada)
- Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (Ontario)
For organizations with this requirement, Sitecore can make it easy to enforce many accessibility standards. Please note that many requirements are content-specific and design-specific and cannot be enforced by a CMS tool or automatically verified; as such, a combination of tool-validation and training for content authors and designers is required for continued compliance.
WCAG 2.0 – Supporting the requirements
The WCAG requirements and remedies are quite in-depth and are not fully covered below. Our intent is to highlight the important areas and show where Sitecore can help.
Accessibility Audit
The first place to start is with an Accessibility Audit that will cross-check your Sitecore build, design and content against the WCAG requirements. An Audit will give you a roadmap and estimated timeframe to reach full compliance.
Two example Audit Tasks
|
Guideline |
Description |
Audit Task |
|
2.3.1 |
Content does not violate general flash threshold or the red flash threshold |
Review all video content to ensure web pages do not contain anything that flashes more than three times in any one second period, or the flash is below the general flash and red flash thresholds |
|
2.4.1 |
The purpose of each link can be determined from the link text alone or from the link text together with its programmatically determined link context, except where the purposes of the link would be ambiguous to users in general |
Read/Review all links to ensure link text is meaningful and coveys purpose – e.g. no “click here” links |
Maintaining Accessibility Compliance
All content that gets added and or update on your site will need to be accessible to maintain compliance. Sitecore’s platform is extensible and can automate validation checks at the field level with a Custom Field Validation or at the workflow level with an API call to a third-party audit service. This way, your content authors will be able to continually validate new content as it is added.
Some Guidelines and Their Remedies
|
Guideline |
Description |
Sitecore & Other Remedies |
|
1.1.1 |
Provide text for all non-text content |
For all images in the Media Library Sitecore provides an "alt" tag value which is mandatory and published with the image This can also be enforced through workflow |
|
1.1.1 |
Provide text alternatives that identify the non-text content with a descriptive text label |
For all videos in the Video Library a video description field is mandatory and published with the video |
|
1.3 |
Ensure that information and structure can be separated from presentation. Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text |
Default of Sitecore Also, TechGuilds builds with AODA in mind and uses semantic, front-end markup best practices such as properly nested H tags (H1, H2, etc) to allow user agents and assistive technologies to identify section headings and navigational structure CSS is also employed for uniform layout structure and styling Mandatory form fields are clearly marked with an asterisk at the end of the label, with instructions indicating so. |
|
2.1.1 |
All functionality of the content is operable in a non-time-dependent manner through a keyboard interface, except where the task requires analog, time-dependent input |
Website content is operable through a keyboard interface without requiring specific timings for individual keystroke |
|
2.2.1 |
Allows users to control time limits on their reading or interaction |
Moving elements, such as homepage slides, can be configured in Sitecore to permit pausing of slides |
|
2.4.1 |
Web pages have titles that describe topic or purpose |
Sitecore allows for several title fields for navigation, page title and breadcrumb. Content authors must ensure they are sufficiently descriptive of page content |
|
3.1.1 |
The primary natural language or languages of the web unit can be programmatically determined |
Sitecore allows for multiple languages and publishes pages with the default human language identified in the HTML element within the lang attribute ("en") |
Content and design specific guidelines
Some WCAG 2.0 requirements cannot be verified as easily by a tool, and require human judgement of both design and content elements. Consider, hiring real people and specifically those with a disability to test your website; the insight you gain will be invaluable. Several companies offer such services which you can locate via your favourite search engine.
Technological Capability
Some organizations may be limited by technological capability. For example, there may be technological software limitations in making online maps and complex diagrams accessible to people with visual disabilities. In such cases, an accessible alternate version must be provided if requested.
A Few Useful AODA Links
http://designedgecanada.com/blogs/yes-you-can-make-youtube-video-accessible-here-is-how/