This content is coauthored by Yan Desjardins, Product Manager, Crownpeak Accessibility and Digital Quality, Crownpeak and Andrew Douglas, Group Creative Director, Appnovation.
When it comes to delivering accessible web experiences, no two organizations are the same. But what you can count on is that the most effective digital solutions are the ones that were designed and built so that all people have equal access to digital content and services.
Appnovation, a global digital partner that designs with accessibility at the core, has partnered with Crownpeak, a composable digital experience platform, on a Digital Accessibility checklist to help digital owners ensure everything from design to content to the technology is working together to provide an accessible experience for all.
The Digital Accessibility Checklist
1. Was the experience designed with empathy to consider the needs of people with disabilities from the outset?
2. Are there any barriers that prevent people with disabilities from accessing, understanding and interacting with the digital content?
3. Is the site's architecture clear to so that assistive tech, search engines, and users understand the site's hierarchy?
4. Are the page's titles accurate to the topic covered for improved SEO results and user experience?
5. Is a link to "Skip Navigation" provided to allow assistive tech to skip directly to the page’s main content?
6. Are relevant headings being provided to give users an easier way to scan content?
7. Does link text make sense and are they specific about where they will lead? Avoid vague directions like “read more” or “click here” or using the page URL as linking text.
8. Are detailed instructions combining location and text being provided? For example, “In the box to the left, titled News and Resources.”
9. Is there a straightforward way to change the text’s language?
10. Are there clear descriptions of the graphs, diagrams, and images being used?
11. Is concise language being used
12. Can shorter words or paragraphs replace longer ones?
13. Is alt text being applied to images to provide accurate descriptions of what the images are?
14. Are captioning and transcriptions available for audio video?
The Solution for a Better Website Experience
An organization can choose to do nothing and accept the associated legal risks and loss of opportunity or conduct time-consuming audits to identify their websites’ accessibility problems.
A better solution has, at its core, automatic scanning and monitoring to identify web accessibility issues. However, without a way to quickly fix the issues, an organization still is at high risk of a legal complaint.
Our teams use Crownpeak's Accessibility & Quality platform to help achieve an improved website experience for all users. The platform helps identify issues across the entire web presence with deep scans, enabling Appnovation's teams to formulate a concrete plan for remediation, applying the design, UX, and technology capabilities to address any accessibility issue.
Together, Appnovation and Crownpeak take a custom, expert-led approach to every implementation.
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