With the recent announcement of the Department of Justice’s Final Rule for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), colleges and universities nationwide are reinforcing their websites’ accessibility features to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). By achieving WCAG compliance, educational institutions not only comply with the ADA, but also build more accessible online learning environments and expand their reach to include students with disabilities.
Performing an accessibility audit is the first step towards WCAG compliance. Let’s learn more about accessibility audits and what you can expect to discover during the process.
What is an accessibility audit?
An accessibility audit is an activity that assesses your digital properties and determines whether or not it is accessible to users with disabilities. It uses the WCAG as a benchmark for accessibility and involves testing whether the website and its content are perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. An accessible website is barrier-free, navigable using a keyboard or assistive device, and offers features for individuals with different kinds of disabilities.
An effective accessibility audit has three components: an automated test, a manual test, and a functional test. Automated testing involves using software to scan your website’s HTML code to scan for certain potential WCAG violations, such as the absence of alt text or low color contrast.
On the other hand, a manual test involves performing pretty much the same tests as automated processes, but in more detail. This includes verifying the accuracy and detail of image alt text and video captions or using the keyboard to navigate web pages. Finally, functional testing checks if a user with disabilities can perform the same tasks as someone without a disability, such as submitting forms or using assistive technology to go from one page to another.
Common accessibility audit findings
The end-product of an accessibility audit is a report that lists different accessibility violations and the steps you can take to remediate them. Here are a few typical violations you would find in your first accessibility audit.
Missing or incorrect alt text
Alternative text consists of short descriptions of images embedded in a web page’s HTML code. This text should be short and accurate, giving enough detail to allow a user with visual impairment to perceive the image. While many web publishing solutions automatically generate alt text, most generated alt text tags are either too generic or do not accurately represent the image, which means any automated checks for this success criterion should be followed up with manual checks.
Low color contrast
Similar to alt text, using the correct color contrast ratios benefits users with visual impairments. As colors are represented by hexadecimal notation in HTML code, low color contrast is easy to detect using an automated checker. The required color contrast ratio is 3:1 for large text and 4.5:1 for normal text. For reference, the color contrast ratio for black text on a white background is 21:1.
Improper use of headings and subheadings
This potential violation is not readily apparent to untrained readers as a web designer can use a larger font to distinguish headings and subheadings from body text. However, this method can result in poor website navigation as keyboard navigation involves hotkeys that allow a user to skip from one section to another. To remediate this issue, use tags such as <h1> and <h2> to identify sections. This method will also help improve your website’s search engine ranking.
Accessibility audits: The first step towards full inclusivity
As you prepare for your first accessibility audit, remember that it involves more than ticking a set of boxes. The real goal is to make your website’s user experience and content more accessible to everyone. By locating potential accessibility violations and acting on those vulnerabilities, you help create an online learning environment where everyone can watch, read, listen, and learn, with or without disabilities.
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