4 W’s of Web Accessibility and Ways to Ensure it – AccessiBe
Web accessibility is also referred to as digital accessibility. It is the concept of designing websites, internet applications, hardware, content, tools, mobile applications, and intelligent device interfaces by ensuring complete accessibility for people with disabilities too. In the highly competitive web world, accessible websites and apps help level the playing field for all businesses. We have seen wheelchair ramps, braille signboards, etc. Similarly, the digital accommodations refer to the audio descriptions, screen-reader compliant page content, extensive touch target calibration for mobile applications, etc.
In the digital world, accessibility offers equal opportunities to disabled people too to interact with the digital content more independently and confidently. In this blog, we will discuss the 4 W’s of accessibility as who, when, where, and why.
4 W’s of accessibly – AccessiBe
- Who digital accessibility aims at?
There are more than a billion people across the globe who suffer from some disabilities and live with the help of assistive technologies. In the digital world, assistive technologies include screen readers, magnifiers, and text-to-speech converters, which enable easy access to disabled people who get on websites and mobile applications. AccessiBe points out that even though digital accessibility primarily benefits the people with disabilities who use assistive devices, in practice, accessibility compliance by developing web utilities by meeting all the regulations helps everyone, including older adults, low vision users, and people with learning disabilities, movement restrictions and so on.
- When to ensure accessibility?
Digital accessibility is a basic need now, so it must be taken care of from the beginning of the product design. Accessibility compliance should also be ensured at each stage of the development lifecycle. However, accessibility compliance is not a one-time project but a severe entity like cybersecurity. Putting accessibility at the core makes it easy to design around it by ensuring compliance rather than incorporating it later as an afterthought.
- Where is digital accessibility needed?
As per a study in 2018, about 90% of Americans access the internet through their smartphones, computers, and other smart connected devices. About 70% of the users do online shopping. In 2020, the pandemic of Covid made people sit at home mandatorily, which boosted internet usage and the e-commerce market. This boom continues even after the covid restrictions are lifted. From social media to online banking, people are merely living in the digital world. So, digital accessibility is a necessity almost everywhere people interact with technology.
- Why is accessibility compliance needed?
As specified in the legal regulation for public accommodations, it is any place of public utility applicable to the digital world. The DOJ had issued guidance regarding website accessibility to be compliant with the WCAG standards. So, for any digital utility, accessibility compliance is a must now to avoid penalties and lawsuits. About 4000 accessibility-related lawsuits were filed against all types of businesses in 2021.
AccessiBe will help you with the accessibility compliance needs with the help of tools and guidance. If you plan to start the accessibility journey, this is the right time to flag it off.
