{"rowid": 193, "title": "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines\u2014for People Who Haven't Read Them", "contents": "I\u2019ve been a huge fan of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 since the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published them, nine years ago. I\u2019ve found them practical and future-proof, and I\u2019ve found that they can save a huge amount of time for designers and developers. You can apply them to anything that you can open in a browser. My favourite part is when I use the guidelines to make a website accessible, and then attend user-testing and see someone with a disability easily using that website.\nToday, the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities, seems like a good time to re-read Laura Kalbag\u2019s explanation of why we should bother with accessibility. That should motivate you to devour this article.\nIf you haven\u2019t read the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, you might find them a bit off-putting at first. The editors needed to create a single standard that countries around the world could refer to in legislation, and so some of the language in the guidelines reads like legalese. The editors also needed to future-proof the guidelines, and so some terminology\u2014such as \u201ctime-based media\u201d and \u201cprogrammatically determined\u201d\u2014can sound ambiguous. The guidelines can seem lengthy, too: printing the guidelines, the Understanding WCAG 2.0 document, and the Techniques for WCAG 2.0 document would take 1,200 printed pages.\nThis festive season, let\u2019s rip off that legalese and ambiguous terminology like wrapping paper, and see\u2014in a single article\u2014what gifts the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 editors have bestowed upon us.\nCan your users perceive the information on your website?\nThe first guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking \u201cWhat the **** is this thing here supposed to be?\u201d\n1.1.1 Text is the most accessible format for information. Screen readers\u2014such as the \u201cVoiceOver\u201d setting on your iPhone or the \u201cTalkBack\u201d app on your Android phone\u2014understand text better than any other format. The same applies for other assistive technology, such as translation apps and Braille displays. So, if you have anything on your webpage that\u2019s not text, you must add some text that gives your user the same information. You probably know how to do this already; for example:\n\nfor images in webpages, put some alternative text in an alt attribute to tell your user what the image conveys to the user;\nfor photos in tweets, add a description to make the images accessible;\nfor Instagram posts, write a caption that conveys the photo\u2019s information.\n\nThe alternative text should allow the user to get the same information as someone who can see the image. For websites that have too many images for someone to add alternative text to, consider how machine learning and Dynamically Generated Alt Text might\u2014might\u2014be appropriate.\nYou can probably think of a few exceptions where providing text to describe an image might not make sense. Remember I described these guidelines as \u201cpractical\u201d? They cover all those exceptions:\n\nUser interface controls such as buttons and text inputs must have names or labels to tell your user what they do.\nIf your webpage has video or audio (more about these later on!), you must\u2014at least\u2014have text to tell the user what they are.\nMaybe your webpage has a test where your user has to answer a question about an image or some audio, and alternative text would give away the answer. In that case, just describe the test in text so your users know what it is.\nIf your webpage features a work of art, tell your user the experience it evokes.\nIf you have to include a Captcha on your webpage\u2014and please avoid Captchas if at all possible, because some users cannot get past them\u2014you must include text to tell your user what it is, and make sure that it doesn\u2019t rely on only one sense, such as vision.\nIf you\u2019ve included something just as decoration, you must make sure that your user\u2019s assistive technology can ignore it. Again, you probably know how to do this. For example, you could use CSS instead of HTML to include decorative images, or you could add an empty alt attribute to the img element. (Please avoid that recent trend where developers add empty alt attributes to all images in a webpage just to make the HTML validate. You\u2019re better than that.)\n\n(Notice that the guidelines allow you to choose how to conform to them, with whatever technology you choose. To make your website conform to a guideline, you can either choose one of the techniques for WCAG 2.0 for that guideline or come up with your own. Choosing a tried-and-tested technique usually saves time!)\n1.2.1 If your website includes a podcast episode, speech, lecture, or any other recorded audio without video, you must include a transcription or some other text to give your user the same information. In a lot of cases, you might find this easier than you expect: professional transcription services can prove relatively inexpensive and fast, and sometimes a speaker or lecturer can provide the speech or lecture notes that they read out word-for-word. Just make sure that all your users can get the same information and the same results, whether they can hear the audio or not. For example, David Smith and Marco Arment always publish episode transcripts for their Under the Radar podcast. \nSimilarly, if your website includes recorded video without audio\u2014such as an animation or a promotional video\u2014you must either use text to detail what happens in the video or include an audio version. Again, this might work out easier then you perhaps fear: for example, you could check to see whether the animation started life as a list of instructions, or whether the promotional video conveys the same information as the \u201cAbout Us\u201d webpage. You want to make sure that all your users can get the same information and the same results, whether they can see that video or not.\n1.2.2 If your website includes recorded videos with audio, you must add captions to those videos for users who can\u2019t hear the audio. Professional transcription services can provide you with time-stamped text in caption formats that YouTube supports, such as .srt and .sbv. You can upload those to YouTube, so captions appear on your videos there. YouTube can auto-generate captions, but the quality varies from impressively accurate to comically inaccurate. If you have a text version of what the people in the video said\u2014such as the speech that a politician read or the bedtime story that an actor read\u2014you can create a transcript file in .txt format, without timestamps. YouTube then creates captions for your video by synchronising that text to the audio in the video. If you host your own videos, you can ask a professional transcription service to give you .vtt files that you can add to a video element\u2019s track element\u2014or you can handcraft your own. (A quick aside: if your website has more videos than you can caption in a reasonable amount of time, prioritise the most popular videos, the most important videos, and the videos most relevant to people with disabilities. Then make sure your users know how to ask you to caption other videos as they encounter them.)\n1.2.3 If your website has recorded videos that have audio, you must add an \u201caudio description\u201d narration to the video to describe important visual details, or add text to the webpage to detail what happens in the video for users who cannot see the videos. (I like to add audio files from videos to my Huffduffer account so that I can listen to them while commuting.) Maybe your home page has a video where someone says, \u201cI\u2019d like to explain our new TPS reports\u201d while \u201cBill Lumbergh, division Vice President of Initech\u201d appears on the bottom of the screen. In that case, you should add an audio description to the video that announces \u201cBill Lumbergh, division Vice President of Initech\u201d, just before Bill starts speaking. As always, you can make life easier for yourself by considering all of your users, before the event: in this example, you could ask the speaker to begin by saying, \u201cI\u2019m Bill Lumbergh, division Vice President of Initech, and I\u2019d like to explain our new TPS reports\u201d\u2014so you won\u2019t need to spend time adding an audio description afterwards. \n1.2.4 If your website has live videos that have some audio, you should get a stenographer to provide real-time captions that you can include with the video. I\u2019ll be honest: this can prove tricky nowadays. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 predate YouTube Live, Instagram live Stories, Periscope, and other such services. If your organisation creates a lot of live videos, you might not have enough resources to provide real-time captions for each one. In that case, if you know the contents of the audio beforehand, publish the contents during the live video\u2014or failing that, publish a transcription as soon as possible.\n1.2.5 Remember what I said about the recorded videos that have audio? If you can choose to either add an audio description or add text to the webpage to detail what happens in the video, you should go with the audio description.\n1.2.6 If your website has recorded videos that include audio information, you could provide a sign language version of the audio information; some people understand sign language better than written language. (You don\u2019t need to caption a video of a sign language version of audio information.)\n1.2.7 If your website has recorded videos that have audio, and you need to add an audio description, but the audio doesn\u2019t have enough pauses for you to add an \u201caudio description\u201d narration, you could provide a separate version of that video where you have added pauses to fit the audio description into.\n1.2.8 Let\u2019s go back to the recorded videos that have audio once more! You could add text to the webpage to detail what happens in the video, so that people who can neither read captions nor hear dialogue and audio description can use braille displays to understand your video.\n1.2.9 If your website has live audio, you could get a stenographer to provide real-time captions. Again, if you know the contents of the audio beforehand, publish the contents during the live audio or publish a transcription as soon as possible.\n(Congratulations on making it this far! I know that seems like a lot to remember, but keep in mind that we\u2019ve covered a complex area: helping your users to understand multimedia information that they can\u2019t see and/or hear. Grab a mince pie to celebrate, and let\u2019s keep going.)\n1.3.1 You must mark up your website\u2019s content so that your user\u2019s browser, and any assistive technology they use, can understand the hierarchy of the information and how each piece of information relates to the rest. Once again, you probably know how to do this: use the most appropriate HTML element for each piece of information. Mark up headings, lists, buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes, and links with the most appropriate HTML element. If you\u2019re looking for something to do to keep you busy this Christmas, scroll through the list of the elements of HTML. Do you notice any elements that you didn\u2019t know, or that you\u2019ve never used? Do you notice any elements that you could use on your current projects, to mark up the content more accurately? Also, revise HTML table advanced features and accessibility, how to structure an HTML form, and how to use the native form widgets\u2014you might be surprised at how much you can do with just HTML! Once you\u2019ve mastered those, you can make your website much more usable for your all of your users.\n1.3.2 If your webpage includes information that your user has to read in a certain order, you must make sure that their browser and assistive technology can present the information in that order. Don\u2019t rely on CSS or whitespace to create that order visually. Check that the order of the information makes sense when CSS and whitespace aren\u2019t formatting it. Also, try using the Tab key to move the focus through the links and form widgets on your webpage. Does the focus go where you expect it to? Keep this in mind when using order in CSS Grid or Flexbox.\n1.3.3 You must not presume that your users can identify sensory characteristics of things on your webpage. Some users can\u2019t tell what you\u2019ve positioned where on the screen. For example, instead of asking your users to \u201cChoose one of the options on the left\u201d, you could ask them to \u201cChoose one of our new products\u201d and link to that section of the webpage.\n1.4.1 You must not rely on colour as the only way to convey something to your users. Some of your users can\u2019t see, and some of your users can\u2019t distinguish between colours. For example, if your webpage uses green to highlight the products that your shop has in stock, you could add some text to identify those products, or you could group them under a sub-heading.\n1.4.2  If your webpage automatically plays a sound for more than 3 seconds, you must make sure your users can stop the sound or change its volume. Don\u2019t rely on your user turning down the volume on their computer; some users need to hear the screen reader on their computer, and some users just want to keep listening to whatever they were listening before your webpage interrupted them!\n1.4.3 You should make sure that your text contrasts enough with its background, so that your users can read it. Bookmark Lea Verou\u2019s Contrast Ratio calculator now. You can enter the text colour and background colour as named colours, or as RGB, RGBa, HSL, or HSLa values. You should make sure that:\n\nnormal text that set at 24px or larger has a ratio of at least 3:1;\nbold text that set at 18.75px or larger has a ratio of at least 3:1;\nall other text has a ratio of at least 4\u00bd:1.\n\nYou don\u2019t have to do this for disabled form controls, decorative stuff, or logos\u2014but you could!\n1.4.4 You should make sure your users can resize the text on your website up to 200% without using their assistive technology\u2014and still access all your content and functionality. You don\u2019t have to do this for subtitles or images of text.\n1.4.5 You should avoid using images of text and just use text instead. In 1998, Jeffrey Veen\u2019s first Hot Design Tip said, \u201cText is text. Graphics are graphics. Don\u2019t confuse them.\u201d Now that you can apply powerful CSS text-styling properties, use CSS Grid to precisely position text, and choose from thousands of web fonts (Jeffrey co-founded Typekit to help with this), you pretty much never need to use images of text. The guidelines say you can use images of text if you let your users specify the font, size, colour, and background of the text in the image of text\u2014but I\u2019ve never seen that on a real website. Also, this doesn\u2019t apply to logos.\n1.4.6 Let\u2019s go back to colour contrast for a second. You could make your text contrast even more with its background, so that even more of your users can read it. To do that, use Lea Verou\u2019s Contrast Ratio calculator to make sure that:\n\nnormal text that is 24px or larger has a ratio of at least 4\u00bd:1;\nbold text that 18.75px or larger has a ratio of at least 4\u00bd:1;\nall other text has a ratio of at least 7:1.\n\n1.4.7 If your website has recorded speech, you could make sure there are no background sounds, or that your users can turn off any background sounds. If that\u2019s not possible, you could make sure that any background sounds that last longer than a couple of seconds are at least four times quieter than the speech. This doesn\u2019t apply to audio Captchas, audio logos, singing, or rapping. (Yes, these guidelines mention rapping!)\n1.4.8 You could make sure that your users can reformat blocks of text on your website so they can read them better. To do this, make sure that your users can:\n\nspecify the colours of the text and the background, and\nmake the blocks of text less than 80-characters wide, and \nalign text to the left (or right for right-to-left languages), and \nset the line height to 150%, and \nset the vertical distance between paragraphs to 1\u00bd times the line height of the text, and \nresize the text (without using their assistive technology) up to 200% and still not have to scroll horizontally to read it.\n\nBy the way, when you specify a colour for text, always specify a colour for its background too. Don\u2019t rely on default background colours!\n1.4.9 Let\u2019s return to images of text for a second. You could make sure that you use them only for decoration and logos.\nCan users operate the controls and links on your website?\nThe second guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cHow the **** does this thing work?\u201d\n2.1.1 You must make sure that you users can carry out all of your website\u2019s activities with just their keyboard, without time limits for pressing keys. (This doesn\u2019t apply to drawing or anything else that requires a pointing device such as a mouse.) Again, if you use the most appropriate HTML element for each piece of information and for each form element, this should prove easy.\n2.1.2 You must make sure that when the user uses the keyboard to focus on some part of your website, they can then move the focus to some other part of your webpage without needing to use a mouse or touch the screen. If your website needs them to do something complex before they can move the focus elsewhere, explain that to your user. These \u201ckeyboard traps\u201d have become rare, but beware of forms that move focus from one text box to another as soon as they receive the correct number of characters.\n2.1.3 Let\u2019s revisit making sure that you users can carry out all of your website\u2019s activities with just their keyboard, without time limits for pressing keys. You could make sure that your user can do absolutely everything on your website with just the keyboard.\n2.2.1 Sometimes people need more time than you might expect to complete a task on your website. If any part of your website imposes a time limit on a task, you must do at least one of these: \n\nlet your users turn off the time limit before they encounter it; or\nlet your users increase the time limit to at least 10 times the default time limit before they encounter it; or\nwarn your users before the time limit expires and give them at least 20 seconds to extend it, and let them extend it at least 10 times.\n\nRemember: these guidelines are practical. They allow you to enforce time limits for real-time events such as auctions and ticket sales, where increasing or extending time limits wouldn\u2019t make sense. Also, the guidelines allow you to enforce a maximum time limit of 20 hours. The editors chose 20 hours because people need to go to sleep at some stage. See? Practical!\n2.2.2 In my experience, this criterion remains the least well-known\u2014even though some users can only use websites that conform to it. If your website presents content alongside other content that can distract users by automatically moving, blinking, scrolling, or updating, you must make sure that your users can:\n\npause, stop, or hide the other content if it\u2019s not essential and lasts more than 5 seconds; and\npause, stop, hide, or control the frequency of the other content if it automatically updates.\n\nIt\u2019s OK if your users miss live information such as stock price updates or football scores; you can\u2019t do anything about that! Also, this doesn\u2019t apply to animations such as progress bars that you put on a website to let all users know that the webpage isn\u2019t frozen.\n(If this one sounds complex, just add a pause button to anything that might distract your users.)\n2.2.3 Let\u2019s go back to time limits on tasks on your website. You could   make your website even easier to use by removing all time limits except those on real-time events such as auctions and ticket sales. That would mean your user wouldn\u2019t need to interact with a timer at all.\n2.2.4 You could let your users turn off all interruptions\u2014server updates, promotions, and so on\u2014apart from any emergency information.\n2.2.5 This is possibly my favourite of these criteria! After your website logs your user out, you could make sure that when they log in again, they can continue from where they were without having lost any information. Do that, and you\u2019ll be on everyone\u2019s Nice List this Christmas.\n2.3.1 You must make sure that nothing flashes more than three times a second on your website, unless you can make sure that the flashes remain below the acceptable general flash and red flash thresholds\u2026\n2.3.2 \u2026or you could just make sure that nothing flashes more than three times per second on your website. This is usually an easier goal.\n2.4.1 You must make sure that your users can jump past any blocks of content, such as navigation menus, that are repeated throughout your website. You know the drill here: using HTML\u2019s sectioning elements such as header, nav, main, aside, and footer allows users with assistive technology to go straight to the content they need, and adding \u201cSkip Navigation\u201d links allows everyone to get to your main content faster.\n2.4.2 You must add a proper title to describe each webpage\u2019s topic. Your webpage won\u2019t even validate without a title element, so make it a useful one.\n2.4.3 If your users can focus on links and native form widgets, you must make sure that they can focus on elements in an order that makes sense.\n2.4.4 You must make sure that your users can understand the purpose of a link when they read:\n\nthe text of the link; or\nthe text of the paragraph, list item, table cell, or table header for the cell that contains the link; or\nthe heading above the link.\n\nYou don\u2019t have to do that for games and quizzes.\n2.4.5 You should give your users multiple ways to find any webpage within a set of webpages. Add site-wide search and a site map and you\u2019re done!\nThis doesn\u2019t apply for a webpage that is part of a series of actions (like a shopping cart and checkout flow) or to a webpage that is a result of a series of actions (like a webpage confirming that the user has bought what was in the shopping cart).\n2.4.6 You should help your users to understand your content by providing:\n\nheadings that describe the topics of you content;\nlabels that describe the purpose of the native form widgets on the webpage.\n\n2.4.7 You should make sure that users can see which element they have focussed on. Next time you use your website, try hitting the Tab key repeatedly. Does it visually highlight each item as it moves focus to it? If it doesn\u2019t, search your CSS to see whether you\u2019ve applied outline: 0; to all elements\u2014that\u2019s usually the culprit. Use the :focus pseudo-element to define how elements should appear when they have focus.\n2.4.8 You could help your user to understand where the current webpage is located within your website. Add \u201cbreadcrumb navigation\u201d and/or a site map and you\u2019re done.\n2.4.9 You could make links even easier to understand, by making sure that your users can understand the purpose of a link when they read the text of the link. Again, you don\u2019t have to do that for games and quizzes.\n2.4.10 You could use headings to organise your content by topic. \nCan users understand your content?\nThe third guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cWhat the **** does this mean?\u201d\n3.1.1 Let\u2019s start this section with the criterion that possibly takes the least time to implement; you must make sure that the user\u2019s browser can identify the main language that your webpage\u2019s content is written in. For a webpage that has mainly English content, use <html lang=\"en\">. \n3.1.2 You  must specify when content in another language appears in your webpage, like so: <q>I wish you a <span lang=\"fr\">Joyeux No\u00ebl</span>.</q>. You don\u2019t have to do this for proper names, technical terms, or words that you can\u2019t identify a language for. You also don\u2019t have to do it for words from a different language that people consider part of the language around those words; for example, <q>Come to our Christmas rendezvous!</q> is OK.\n3.1.3 You could make sure that your users can find out the meaning of any unusual words or phrases, including idioms like \u201cstocking filler\u201d or \u201cBah! Humbug!\u201d and jargon such as \u201cVoiceOver\u201d and \u201cTalkBack\u201d. Provide a glossary or link to a dictionary.\n3.1.4 You could make sure that your users can find out the meaning of any    abbreviation. For example, VoiceOver pronounces \u201cXmas\u201d as \u201cSmas\u201d instead of \u201cChristmas\u201d. Using the abbr element and linking to a glossary can help. (Interestingly, VoiceOver pronounces \u201cabbr\u201d as \u201cabbreviation\u201d!)\n3.1.5 Do your users need to be able to read better than a typically educated nine-year-old, to read your content (apart from proper names and titles)? If so, you could provide a version that doesn\u2019t require that level of reading ability, or you could provide images, videos, or audio to explain your content. (You don\u2019t have to add captions or audio description to those videos.)\n3.1.6 You could make sure that your users can access the pronunciation of any word in your content if that word\u2019s meaning depends on its pronunciation. For example, the word \u201cclose\u201d could have one of two meanings, depending on pronunciation, in a phrase such as, \u201cReady for Christmas? Close now!\u201d\n3.2.1 Some users need to focus on elements to access information about them. You must make sure that focusing on an element doesn\u2019t trigger any major changes, such as opening a new window, focusing on another element, or submitting a form.\n3.2.2 Webpages are easier for users when the controls do what they\u2019re supposed to do. Unless you have warned your users about it, you must make sure that changing the value of a control such as a text box, checkbox, or drop-down list doesn\u2019t trigger any major changes, such as opening a new window, focusing on another element, or submitting a form.\n3.2.3 To help your users to find the content they want on each webpage, you should put your navigation elements in the same place on each webpage. (This doesn\u2019t apply when your user has changed their preferences or when they use assistive technology to change how your content appears.) \n3.2.4 When a set of webpages includes things that have the same functionality on different webpages, you should name those things consistently. For example, don\u2019t use the word \u201cSearch\u201d for the search box on one webpage and \u201cFind\u201d for the search box on another webpage within that set of webpages.\n3.2.5 Let\u2019s go back to major changes, such as a new window opening, another element taking focus, or a form being submitted. You could make sure that they only happen when users deliberately make them happen, or when you have warned users about them first. For example, you could give the user a button for updating some content instead of automatically updating that content. Also, if a link will open in a new window, you could add the words \u201copens in new window\u201d to the link text.\n3.3.1 Users make mistakes when filling in forms. Your website must identify each mistake to your user, and must describe the mistake to your users in text so that the user can fix it. One way to identify mistakes reliably to your users is to set the aria-invalid attribute to true in the element that has a mistake. That makes sure that users with assistive technology will be alerted about the mistake. Of course, you can then use the [aria-invalid=\"true\"] attribute selector in your CSS to visually highlight any such mistakes. Also, look into how certain attributes of the input element such as required, type, and list can help prevent and highlight mistakes.\n3.3.2 You must include labels or instructions (and possibly examples) in your website\u2019s forms, to help your users to avoid making mistakes. \n3.3.3 When your user makes a mistake when filling in a form, your webpage should suggest ways to fix that mistake, if possible. This doesn\u2019t apply in scenarios where those suggestions could affect the security of the content.\n3.3.4 Whenever your user submits information that:\n\nhas legal or financial consequences; or\naffects information that they have previously saved in your website; or\nis part of a test\n\n\u2026you should make sure that they can:\n\nundo it; or\ncorrect any mistakes, after your webpage checks their information; or\nreview, confirm, and correct the information before they finally submit it.\n\n3.3.5 You could help prevent your users from making mistakes by providing obvious, specific help, such as examples, animations, spell-checking, or extra instructions.\n3.3.6 Whenever your user submits any information, you could make sure that they can:\n\nundo it; or\ncorrect any mistakes, after your webpage checks their information; or\nreview, confirm, and correct the information before they finally submit it.\n\nHave you made your website robust enough to work on your users\u2019 browsers and assistive technologies?\nThe fourth and final guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cWhy the **** doesn\u2019t this work on my device?\u201d\n4.1.1 You must make sure that your website works as well as possible with current and future browsers and assistive technology. Prioritise  complying with web standards instead of relying on the capabilities of currently popular devices and browsers. Web developers didn\u2019t expect their users to be unwrapping the Wii U Browser five years ago\u2014who knows what browsers and assistive technologies our users will be unwrapping in five years\u2019 time? Avoid hacks, and use the W3C Markup Validation Service to make sure that your HTML has no errors.\n4.1.2 If you develop your own user interface components, you must make their name, role, state, properties, and values available to your user\u2019s browsers and assistive technologies. That should make them almost as accessible as standard HTML elements such as links, buttons, and checkboxes.\n\u201c\u2026and a partridge in a pear tree!\u201d\n\u2026as that very long Christmas song goes. We\u2019ve covered a lot in this article\u2014because your users have a lot of different levels of ability. Hopefully this has demystified the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 for you. Hopefully you spotted a few situations that could arise for users on your website, and you now know how to tackle them. \nTo start applying what we\u2019ve covered, you might like to look at Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery\u2019s personas for Accessible UX. Discuss the personas, get into their heads, and think about which aspects of your website might cause problems for them. See if you can apply what we\u2019ve covered today, to help users like them to do what they need to do on your website.\nHow to know when your website is perfectly accessible for everyone\nLOL! There will never be a time when your website becomes perfectly accessible for everyone. Don\u2019t aim for that. Instead, aim for regularly testing and making your website more accessible.\nWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1\nThe W3C hope to release the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 as a \u201crecommendation\u201d (that\u2019s what the W3C call something that we should start using) by the middle of next year. Ten years may seem like a long time to move from version 2.0 to version 2.1, but consider the scale of the task: the editors have to update the guidelines to cover all the new ways that people interact with new technologies, while keeping the guidelines backwards-compatible. Keep an eye out for 2.1!\nYou\u2019ll go down in history\nOne last point: I\u2019ve met a surprising number of web designers and developers who do great work to make their websites more accessible without ever telling their users about it. Some of your potential customers have possibly tried and failed to use your website in the past. They probably won\u2019t try again unless you let them know that things have improved. A quick Twitter search for your website\u2019s name alongside phrases like \u201cassistive technology\u201d, \u201cdoesn\u2019t work\u201d, or \u201c#fail\u201d can let you find frustrated users\u2014so you can tell them about how you\u2019re making your website more accessible. Start making your websites work better for everyone\u2014and please, let everyone know.", "year": "2017", "author": "Alan Dalton", "author_slug": "alandalton", "published": "2017-12-03T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2017/wcag-for-people-who-havent-read-them/", "topic": "code"}
{"rowid": 245, "title": "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1\u2014for People Who Haven\u2019t Read the Update", "contents": "Happy United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2018! The United Nations chose \u201cEmpowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality\u201d as this year\u2019s theme. We\u2019ve seen great examples of that in 2018; for example, Paul Robert Lloyd has detailed how he improved the accessibility of this very website. \nOn social media, US Congressmember-Elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez started using the Clipomatic app to add live captions to her Instagram live stories, conforming to success criterion 1.2.4, \u201cCaptions (Live)\u201d of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (figure 1) \u2026and British Vogue Contributing Editor Sin\u00e9ad Burke has used the split-screen feature of Instagram live stories to invite an interpreter to provide live Sign Language interpretation, going above and beyond success criterion 1.2.6, \u201cSign Language (Prerecorded)\u201d of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (figure 2).\n\nFigure 1: Screenshot of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s Instagram story with live captionsFigure 2: Screenshot of Sin\u00e9ad Burke\u2019s Instagram story with Sign Language Interpretation\nThat theme chimes with this year\u2019s publication of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)\u2019s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. In last year\u2019s \u201cWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines\u2014for People Who Haven\u2019t Read Them\u201d, I mentioned the scale of the project to produce this update during 2018: \u201cthe editors have to update the guidelines to cover all the new ways that people interact with new technologies, while keeping the guidelines backwards-compatible\u201d. \nThe WCAG working group have added 17 success criteria to the 61 that they released way back in 2008\u2014for context, that was 1\u00bd years before Apple released their first iPad! These new criteria make it easier than ever for us web geeks to produce work that is more accessible to people using mobile devices and touchscreens, people with low vision, and people with cognitive and learning disabilities. \nOnce again, let\u2019s rip off all the legalese and ambiguous terminology like wrapping paper, and get up to date.\nCan your users perceive the information on your website?\nThe first guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cWhat the **** is this thing here supposed to be?\u201d We\u2019ve seven new criteria for this guideline.\n1.3.4 Some people can\u2019t easily change the orientation of the device that they use to browse the web, and so you should make sure that your users can use your website in portrait orientation and in landscape orientation. Consider how people slowly twirl presents that they have plucked from under the Christmas tree, to find the appropriate orientation\u2014and expect your users to do likewise with your websites and apps. We\u2019ve had 18\u00bd years since John Allsopp\u2019s revelatory Dao of Web Design enlightened us to \u201cembrace the fact that the web doesn\u2019t have the same constraints\u201d as printed pages, and to \u201cdesign for this flexibility\u201d. So, even though this guideline doesn\u2019t apply to websites where \u201ca specific display orientation is essential,\u201d such as a piano tutorial, always ask yourself, \u201cWhat would John Allsopp do?\u201d\n1.3.5 You should help the user\u2019s browser to automatically complete\u2013or not complete\u2013form fields, to save the user some time and effort. The surprisingly powerful and flexible autocomplete attribute for input elements should prove most useful here. If you\u2019ve used microformats or microdata to mark up information about a person, the autocomplete attribute\u2019s range of values should seem familiar. I like how the W3\u2019s \u201cUsing HTML 5.2 autocomplete attributes\u201d says that autocompleted values in forms help \u201cthose with dexterity disabilities who have trouble typing, those who may need more time, and anyone who wishes to reduce effort to fill out a form\u201d (emphasis mine). Um\u2026\ud83d\ude4b\u200d\u2642\ufe0f\n1.3.6 I like this one a lot, because it can help a huge audience to overcome difficulties that might prevent them from ever using the web. Some people have cognitive difficulties that affect their memory, focus, attention, language processing, and/or decision-making. Those users often rely on assistive technologies that present information through proprietary symbols, summaries of content, and keyboard shortcuts. You could use ARIA landmarks to identify the regions of each webpage. You could also keep an eye on the W3C\u2019s ongoing work on Personalisation Semantics.\n1.4.10 If you were to find a Nintendo Switch and \u201cSuper Mario Odyssey\u201d under your Christmas tree, you would have many hours of enjoyably scrolling horizontally and vertically to play the game. On the other hand, if you had to zoom a webpage to 400% so that you could read the content, you might have many hours of frustratedly scrolling horizontally and vertically to read the content. Learned reader, I assume you understand the purpose and the core techniques of Responsive Web Design. I also assume you\u2019re getting up to speed with the new Grid, Flexbox, and Box Alignment techniques for layout, and overflow-wrap. Using those skills, you should make sure that all content and functionality remain available when the browser is 320px wide, without your user needing to scroll horizontally. (For vertical text, you should make sure that all content and functionality remain available when the browser is 256px high, without your user needing to scroll vertically.) You don\u2019t have to do this for anything that would lose meaning if you restructured it into one narrow column. That includes some images, maps, diagrams, video, games, presentations, and data tables. Remember to check how your media queries affect font size: your user might find that text becomes smaller as they zoom into the webpage. So, test this one on real devices, or\u2014better yet\u2014test it with real users.\n1.4.11 In \u201cWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines\u2014for People Who Haven\u2019t Read Them\u201d, I recommended bookmarking Lea Verou\u2019s Contrast Ratio calculator for checking that text contrasts enough with its background (for success criteria 1.4.3 and 1.4.6), so that more people can read it more easily. For this update, you should make sure that form elements and their focus states have a 3:1 contrast ratio with the colour around them. This doesn\u2019t apply to controls that use the browser\u2019s default styling. Also, you should make sure that graphics that convey information have a 3:1 contrast ratio with the colour around them.\n1.4.12 Some people, due to low vision or dyslexia, might need to modify the typography that you agonised over. Research indicates that you should make sure that all content and functionality would remain available if a user were to set:\n\nline height to at least 1\u00bd \u00d7 the font size;\nspace below paragraphs to at least 2 \u00d7 the font size;\nletter spacing to at least 0.12 \u00d7 the font size;\nword spacing to at least 0.16 \u00d7 the font size.\n\nTo test this, check for text overlapping, text hiding behind other elements, or text disappearing.\n1.4.13 Sometimes when visiting a website, you hover over\u2014or tab on to\u2014something that unleashes a newsletter subscription pop-up, some suggested \u201crelated content\u201d, and/or a GDPR-related pop-up. On a well-designed website, you can press the Esc key on your keyboard or click a prominent \u201cClose\u201d button or \u201cX\u201d button to vanquish such intrusions. If the Esc key fails you, or if you either can\u2019t see or can\u2019t click the \u201cClose\u201d button\u2026well, you\u2019ll probably just close that browser tab. This situation can prove even more infuriating for users with low vision or cognitive disabilities. So, if new content appears when your user hovers over or tabs on to some element, you should make sure that:\n\nyour user can dismiss that content without needing to move their pointer or tab on to some other element (this doesn\u2019t apply to error warnings, or well-behaved content that doesn\u2019t obscure or replace other content);\nthe new content remains visible while your user moves their cursor over it;\nthe new content remains visible as long as the user hovers over that element or dismisses that content\u2014or until the new content is no longer valid.\n\nThis doesn\u2019t apply to situations such as hovering over an element\u2019s title attribute, where the user\u2019s browser controls the display of the content that appears.\nCan users operate the controls and links on your website?\nThe second guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cHow the **** does this thing work?\u201d We\u2019ve nine new criteria for this guideline.\n2.1.4 Some websites offer keyboard shortcuts for users. For example, the keyboard shortcuts for Gmail allow the user to press the \u21e7 key and u to mark a message as unread. Usually, shortcuts on websites include modifier keys, such as Ctrl, along with a letter, number, or punctuation symbol. Unfortunately, users who have dexterity challenges sometimes trigger those shortcuts by accident, and that can make a website impossible to use. Also, speech input technology can sometimes trigger those shortcuts. If your website offers single-character keyboard shortcuts, you must allow your user to turn off or remap those shortcuts. This doesn\u2019t apply to single-character keyboard shortcuts that only work when a control, such as drop-down list, has focus.\n2.2.6 If your website uses a timeout for some process, you could store the user\u2019s data for at least 20 hours, so that users with cognitive disabilities can take a break or take longer than usual to complete the process without losing their place or losing their data. Alternatively, you could warn the user, at the start of the process, about that the website will timeout after whatever amount of time you have chosen. \n2.3.3 If your website has some non-essential animation (such as parallax scrolling) that starts when the user does some particular action, you could allow the user to turn off that animation so that you avoid harming users with vestibular disorders. The prefers-reduced-motion media query currently has limited browser support, but you can start using it now to avoid showing animations to users who select the \u201cReduce Motion\u201d setting (or equivalent) in their device\u2019s operating system:\n@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {\n  .MrFancyPants {\n    animation: none;\n  }\n}\n2.5.1 Some websites let users use multi-touch gestures on touchscreen devices. For example, Google Maps allows users to pinch with two fingers to zoom out and \u201cunpinch\u201d with two fingers to zoom in. Also, some websites allow users to drag a finger to do some action, such as changing the value on an input element with type=\"range\", or swiping sideways to the next photograph in a gallery. Some users with dexterity challenges, and some users who use a head pointer, an eye-gaze system, or speech-controlled mouse emulation, might find multi-touch gestures or dragging impossible. You must make sure that your website supports single-tap alternatives to any multi-touch gestures or dragging actions that it provides. For example, if your website lets someone pinch and unpinch a map to zoom in and out, you must also provide buttons that a user can tap to zoom in and out.\n2.5.2 This might be my favourite accessibility criterion ever! Did you ever touch or press a \u201cSend\u201d button but then immediately realise that you really didn\u2019t want to send the message, and so move your finger or cursor away from the \u201cSend\u201d button before lifting your finger?! Imagine how many arguments that functionality has prevented. \ud83d\ude0c You must make sure that touching or pressing does not cause anything to happen before the user raises their finger or cursor, or make sure that the user can move their finger or cursor away to prevent the action. In JavaScript, prefer onclick to onmousedown, unless your website has actions that need onmousedown. Also, this doesn\u2019t apply to actions that need to happen as soon as the user clicks or touches. For example, a user playing a \u201cWhac-A-Mole\u201d game or a piano emulator needs the action to happen as soon as they click or touch the screen.\n2.5.3 Recently, entrepreneur and social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk has emphasised the rise of audio and voice as output and input. He quotes a Google statistic that says one in five search queries use voice input. Once again, users with disabilities have been ahead of the curve here, having used screen readers and/or dictation software for many years. You must make sure that the text that appears on a form control or image matches how your HTML identifies that form control or image. Use proper semantic HTML to achieve this:\n\nuse the label element to pair text with the corresponding input element;\nuse an alt attribute value that exactly matches any text that appears in an image;\nuse an aria-labelledby attribute value that exactly matches the text that appears in any complex component.\n\n2.5.4 Modern Web APIs allow web developers to specify how their website will react to the user shaking, tilting, or gesturing towards their device. Some users might find those actions difficult, impossible, or embarrassing to perform. If you make any functionality available when the user shakes, tilts, or gestures towards their device, you must provide form controls that make that same functionality available. As usual, this doesn\u2019t apply to websites that require shaking, tilting, or gesturing; this includes some games and music programmes. John Gruber describes the iPhone\u2019s \u201cShake to Undo\u201d gesture as \u201cdreadful \u2014 impossible to discover through exploration of the on-screen [user interface], bad for accessibility, and risks your phone flying out of your hand\u201d. This accessibility criterion seems to empathise with John: you must make sure that your user can prevent your website from responding to shaking, tilting and/or gesturing towards their device.\n2.5.5 Homer Simpson\u2019s telephone famously complained, \u201cThe fingers you have used to dial are too fat.\u201d I think we\u2019ve all felt like that when using phones and tablets, particularly when trying to dismiss pop-ups and ads. You could make interactive elements at least 44px wide \u00d7 44px high. Apple\u2019s \u201cHuman Interface Guidelines\u201d agree: \u201cProvide ample touch targets for interactive elements. Try to maintain a minimum tappable area of 44pt x 44pt for all controls.\u201d This doesn\u2019t apply to links within inline text, or to unsoiled elements.\n2.5.6 Expect your users to use a variety of input devices they want, and to change from one to another whenever they please. For example, a user with a tablet and keyboard might jab icons on the screen while typing on the keyboard, or a user might dictate text while alone and then type on a keyboard when a colleague arrives. You could make sure that your website allows your users to use whichever available input modality they choose. Once again, this doesn\u2019t apply to websites that require a specific modality; this includes typing tutors and music programmes.\nCan users understand your content?\nThe third guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cWhat the **** does this mean?\u201d We\u2019ve no new criteria for this guideline. \nHave you made your website robust enough to work on your users\u2019 browsers and assistive technologies?\nThe fourth and final guideline has criteria that help you prevent your users from asking, \u201cWhy the **** doesn\u2019t this work on my device?\u201d We\u2019ve one new criterion for this guideline.\n4.1.3 Sometimes you need to let your user know the status of something: \u201cDid it work OK? What was the error? How far through it are we?\u201d However, you should avoid making your user lose their place on the webpage, and so you should let them know the status without opening a new window, focusing on another element, or submitting a form. To do this properly for assistive technology users, choose the appropriate ARIA role for the new content; for example:  \n\nif your user needs to know, \u201cDid it work OK?\u201d, add role=\"status\u201d;\nif your user needs to know, \u201cWhat was the error?\u201d, add role=\"alert\u201d;\nif you user needs to know, \u201cHow far through it are we?\u201d, add role=\"log\" (for a chat window) or role=\"progressbar\" (for, well, a progress bar).\n\nBetter design for humans\nMy favourite of Luke Wroblewski\u2019s collection of Design Quotes is, \u201cDesign is the art of gradually applying constraints until only one solution remains,\u201d   from that most prolific author, \u201cUnknown\u201d. I\u2019ve always viewed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as people-based constraints, and liked how they help the design process. With these 17 new web content accessibility criteria, go forth and create solutions that more people than ever before can use.\nSpending those book vouchers you got for Christmas\nWhat next? If you\u2019re looking for something to do to keep you busy this Christmas, I thoroughly recommend these four books for increasing your accessibility expertise:\n\n\u201cPro HTML5 Accessibility\u201d by Joshue O Connor (Head of Accessibility (Interim) at the UK Government Digital Service, Director of InterAccess, and one of the editors of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1): Although this book is six years old\u2014a long time in web design\u2014I find it an excellent go-to resource. It begins by explaining how people with disabilities use the web, and then expertly explains modern HTML in that context.\n\u201cA Web for Everyone\u2014Designing Accessible User Experiences\u201d by Sarah Horton (the Paciello Group\u2019s UX Strategy Lead) and Whitney Quesenbery (the Center for Civic Design\u2019s co-director): This book covers the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, the principles of Universal Design, and design thinking. Its personas for Accessible UX and its profiles of well-known industry figures\u2014including some 24ways authors\u2014keep its content practical and relevant throughout.\n\u201cAccessibility For Everyone\u201d by Laura Kalbag (Ind.ie\u2019s co-founder and designer, and 24ways author): This book is just over a year old, and so serves as a great resource for up-to-date coverage of guidelines, laws, and accessibility features of operating systems\u2014as well as content, design, coding, and testing. The audiobook, which Laura narrates, can help you and your colleagues go from having little or no understanding of web accessibility, to becoming familiar with all aspects of web accessibility\u2014in less than four hours.\n\u201cJust Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design\u201d by Shawn Lawton Henry (the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)\u2019s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)\u2019s Outreach Coordinator): Although this book is 11\u00bd years old, the way it presents accessibility as part of the User-Centered Design process is timeless. I found its section on Usability Testing with people with disabilities particularly useful.", "year": "2018", "author": "Alan Dalton", "author_slug": "alandalton", "published": "2018-12-03T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2018/wcag-for-people-who-havent-read-the-update/", "topic": "ux"}