Adhering to these guidelines is not optional鈥攊t is a legal obligation to ensure that everyone, regardless of ability, can access and engage with our online and digital materials.
What is digital accessibility?
In the same way physical spaces are now expected to have ramps for wheelchairs, accessibility is now also expected for your digital products and services.
This is what we call digital accessibility.
Web accessibility means that people with disabilities, impairments, and limitations can still use the web.
The two terms of web and digital accessibility are often used interchangeably.
However, digital and web accessibility benefits everyone, not just people with a disability.
WCAG
WCAG, or the , sets guidelines on how to make websites and digital applications accessible to people with disabilities.
They set the international standard for web accessibility.
Understanding the four principles of accessibility
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and success criteria are organised around the following four principles, which lay the foundation necessary for anyone to access and use online content.
Anyone who wants to use the web must have content that is:
Perceivable
Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
This means that users must be able to perceive the presented information (it can't be invisible to all of their senses).
Operable
User interface components and navigation must be operable.
This means that users must be able to operate the interface (the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform).
Usable / Understandable
Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.
This means that users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface (the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding).
Robust
Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.
This means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance (as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible)
If any of these are not true, users with disabilities will not be able to use the web.