Above all, accessibility is about empathy, the ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes In systems and software development, this means thinking about the use of a system or service from the perspective of someone who has difficulty seeing text on the screen, or who cannot understand complex text or foreign words. So accessibility it also about responsibility: making sure that all users can understand and use digital services.
The accessibility objective is also served by the Equality Act, which requires that digital services provided by public operators are accessible to all. This is mainly guided by the international WCAG standard. Although the standard provides guidelines and policies for implementing accessibility, the practical work is based on putting different users in different positions. Standards are often seen as constraints, but their best asset is to help us see what needs to be addressed in software development to make the service accessible to all users, regardless of disability or illness.
Accessibility is not just a public sector issue
Currently, only public authorities are required to comply with the accessibility standard, but businesses can also benefit from it. Making digital services and websites more accessible improves the user experience for all users.
Online shops can also expand their potential customer base by offering an accessible digital commerce. For businesses, improving the accessibility of their services, websites and digital commerce is also a tangible way to achieve true responsibility.
What is it about?
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 define how to make digital services accessible to users with disabilities or limitations such as blindness or low vision, deafness or hearing problems, mobility impairment, speech impairment or photosensitivity. The guidelines also take into account people with learning and comprehension difficulties.
The accessibility guidelines are divided into three levels: A, AA, and AAA. In Finland, public sector services must meet the AA level accessibility standard. For the time being, the standard does not fully apply to services provided by non-public operators and online shops.
The next version of the standard, WCAG 2.2, responds to the changes brought about by changing technology, although it does not yet fully address touchscreen devices.
Digital services genuinely accessible to all
The WCAG standard provides tangible tools for implementing accessibility. It defines requirements for the technical accessibility of online services, such as text size and layout, color contrasts, background sounds and effects, and code compatibility with different assistive technologies and terminals. When a website is technically well-designed and its content structure is correctly labeled, it is easier to use with a variety of terminals and assistive devices that facilitate understanding. The standard also specifies that the language used in a digital service must be understandable and not contain too many unusual words or abbreviations.
The WCAG standard as a whole is very broad, and its guidelines are detailed but also ambiguous, which often requires the help of a competent software development partner to apply them. One of the most typical observations related to the lack of textual explanations for alt text, e.g. a caption must be written for an image on a webpage explaining the topic, or an icon must be formatted with an explanatory text so that the full content of the website is readable by a screen reader.
Pinja as a partner for accessibility development
Pinja offers a wide range of services for software development projects, including accessibility services. Accessibility is developed according to the needs of the client, either from the start of the design process or as improvements to an existing system or service. We also offer consulting and training to improve accessibility in areas such as Power BI reporting.
A comprehensive way to improve the accessibility of an existing service is to start with an audit. This gives a good overall picture of the level of accessibility of the service and the measures than can be taken to improve it. Auditing is done partly by automated testing, which helps find more than half of the potential problems, and partly manually, for example using a screen reader. The extent of testing depends on which browsers and operating systems the client wants to support. In addition, testing includes a review of the site for various types of color blindness and visual field defects, and the audio and video materials on the site are tested. Based on the results of the audit report and the desired level of accessibility, the necessary improvements to the client’s digital service are made. An audit provided by Pinja takes up to a week, depending on the scope of the service.
Accessibility can be incorporated into any software development project and service. Pinja’s experts help assess the accessibility of an existing service, find the right ways to implement it and make it truly accessible to all users.
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