Website accessibility

Web accessibility is the inclusive practice of ensuring that websites are accessible, and that tools and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them. More specifically, that all those users can perceive, understand, navigate, interact and contribute to the web.

The World Health Organization (WHO) includes in its reports a total of one billion people with disabilities. The access of these people to technology must be taken into account in the construction of an egalitarian society. The same World Health Organization, through the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (CIF) of the year 2001, defines disability as "a generic term that includes deficits, limitations in activity and restrictions in stake. It indicates the negative aspects of the interaction between an individual (with a health condition) and their contextual factors (environmental and personal factors)”. (Egea, 2006).

Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the web, including: hearing, cognitive, neurological, physical, visual, and speech disorders. In this sense, when websites are designed with accessibility, all users can access its contents on equal terms. For example, when a site has semantically correct XHTML code, alternative text equivalents are provided to images and links are given a meaningful name, allowing blind users to use screen readers or Braille displays to access the site. contents. When videos have subtitles, users with hearing difficulties will be able to fully understand them. If the contents are written in simple language and illustrated with diagrams and animations, users with dyslexia or learning disabilities are better able to understand them.

If the size of the text is large enough, visually impaired users can read it without difficulty. Similarly, sizing buttons or hotspots appropriately can make them easier to use for users who cannot control the mouse precisely. By avoiding actions that depend on a specific device (pressing a key, clicking the mouse) the user can choose the device that suits him best.

What is mentioned in the previous paragraphs can be summarized in Accessibility Guidelines, which explain how to make the contents of the web accessible to people with disabilities. They are designed for all web content designers and creation tool designers. The main purpose of these guidelines is to promote accessibility. These guidelines are a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specification that provides guidance on the accessibility of web sites for people with disabilities. They have been developed by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Limitations

Limitations in the accessibility of websites can be:

• Visuals: In its different degrees, from low vision to total blindness, as well as problems to distinguish colors (Daltonism).
• Motrics: Difficulty or impossibility to use hands, including tremors, muscle slowness, etc., due to diseases such as Parkinson, muscle dystrophy, cerebral palsy, amputations, among others.
• Hearing: Deafness or hearing impairments.
• Cognitive: Learning difficulties (dyslexia, discalculia, etc) or cognitive disabilities that affect memory, attention, logical skills, etc.

To people with disabilities we can add the group of "elderly people", since the deficiencies and problems of the physical media, as well as many times the content, make these people find themselves also at risk of infoexclusion.

Accessibility issues

The main difficulties encountered by the person with a disability are usually:

• Terminal management: Phones, computers, ATMs and digital television most of the time are not designed and placed, in the case of ATMs, paying attention to the needs of persons with disabilities. The variety of terminals is very large, what to look for is to follow the tendency to reduce them and access all services through a few.
• Interaction with interfaces: The menus, navigation bars and buttons are not usually accessible from a variety of adapted terminals.
• Access to content: The contents to which you have access from the same device are growing and, this rapid growth does not usually meet the specific needs of the disability.

Characteristics of an accessible site

An accessible website is:

• Transformable: Information and services must be accessible to all and can be used with all navigation devices.
• Understandable: Clear and simple content.
• Navigator: Simple navigation mechanisms.

Technical aids

Technical aids, also called assistive technologies, are the devices used by people with disabilities to prevent, compensate, mitigate or neutralize their disability.

The following are some of the assistive technologies that users with disabilities use to navigate the web:

• A screen reader program, which can read using voice synthesis, the elements shown on the monitor (of great help for users with learning or reading difficulties), or that you can read all that is happening on the PC (used by blind and reduced vision users).
• Braille lines, which consists of hardware that converts the text into Braille characters.
• A screen magnifier program that expands what is displayed on the computer monitor, making it easier to read for reduced vision users.
• Eldy is a software that converts any personal computer or standard PC into an easy-to-use computer for people who have never used a computer before.

Web accessibility guidelines

The highest body within the Internet hierarchy that is in charge of promoting accessibility is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), especially its Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) working group. In 1999 the WAI published version 1.0 of its web accessibility guidelines. Over time they have become an internationally accepted benchmark. In December 2008, WCAG 2.0 was approved as an official recommendation.

People with different types of disabilities may experience difficulties using the web due to the combination of barriers in the information of web pages, with the barriers of "user agents" (browsers, multimedia devices or technical aids). These guidelines are specifically related to the reduction of barriers on web pages (Egea, 2006).

These guidelines are divided into three blocks:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

They are aimed at webmasters and indicate how to make website contents accessible.

Accessibility Guidelines for Author Tools (ATAG)

They are aimed at software developers using webmasters, so that these programs facilitate the creation of accessible sites.

Accessibility Guidelines for User Agents (UAAG)

They are aimed at developers of user agents (navegators and similar), so that these programs provide all users with access to websites.

Legislation

Argentina

Law 26,653 on Accessibility of Information on Web Pages. Approved by the National Congress on November 3, 2010. It, in its Art. 1, specifies that both the National State and its decentralized agencies or those companies that are related in any way to public services or goods, must respect standards and requirements on accessibility in the design of its web pages. The objective is to facilitate access to content for all people with disabilities, to guarantee equal opportunities in relation to access to information and to avoid discrimination.

Likewise, by means of Decree 656/2019, the regulations of the aforementioned Law No. 26,653 are approved and it is reported that the application authority thereof will be the ONTI (National Office of Information Technologies). This organism is located as the one in charge of assisting and/or advising the natural and legal persons reached by this Law; in addition to disseminating, approving/updating and also monitoring compliance with the standards and accessibility requirements of web pages; Among other functions.

Spain

Since 2002, several laws have been developed in Spain that define accessibility levels and compliance dates:

• Act No. 34/2002 of 11 July on information and electronic commerce services.
• Law 51/2003 of 2 December on Equal Opportunities, Non-Discrimination and Universal Accessibility with Disabilities (LIONDAU).
• Royal Decree 366/2007 of 16 March on the accessibility and non-discrimination of persons with disabilities in their relations with the Government.
• Law 27/2007, of 23 October, which recognizes the languages of Spanish signs and regulates the means of support for the oral communication of deaf people, with hearing impairment and deafness.
• Royal Decree 1494/2007 of 12 November adopting the Regulations on the Basic Conditions for the Access of Persons with Disabilities to the Information Society.
• Act 49/2007 of 26 December establishing the regime for offences and sanctions on equal opportunities, non-discrimination and universal accessibility of persons with disabilities.
• Law 7/2010 of 31 March, General of Audiovisual Communication.
• Act No. 26/2011 of 1 August on policy adaptation to the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
• Royal Legislative Decree 1/2013, of 29 November, adopting the Consolidated Text of the General Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and their Social Inclusion.
• Royal Decree 1112/2018 of 7 September on accessibility of websites and applications for mobile devices in the public sector.

UNE 139803:2004 Regulation

Call “Computer applications for people with disabilities. Accessibility requirements for web content”, provides accessible solutions for web developers, creating a list of resources that allow defining the characteristics that must be met in terms of web content on the Internet, Intranets and any other type of computer network., so that they can be used by the greatest number of people, including people with disabilities and the elderly.

UNE 139803:2012 Regulation

In 2012, it was updated to adopt WCAG 2.0 as a base.

Europe

• eEurope 2002. "Accessibility of public websites and their Contents."
• eEurope 2005. "A society of information for all."
• Electronic accessibility Brussels, 13.09.2005.

CWA Regulation 15554:2006

Called "Specifications for the web accessibility quality mark and conformity assessment scheme".

United States

• Section 508, Rehabilitation Act 1973.

Benefits

The main benefits offered by web accessibility.

• Increases the number of potential visitors to the website: this is a very important reason for a company that intends to capture new customers. When a website is accessible, there are no barriers that hinder access, regardless of user conditions. A website that meets the standards is more likely to be correctly displayed on any device with any browser.
• Reduces development and maintenance costs: Although initially learning to make an accessible website means a cost (equal than a cost to learn to use any new technology), once you have the knowledge, the cost of developing and maintaining an accessible website is less than a non-accessible, since an accessible website is a page whose code meets the standards, less likely to contain errors and easier to update.
• Reduces the loading time of the web pages and the upload of the web server: By separating the content of the information about the presentation of a website through CSS, it is possible to reduce the size of the web pages and therefore reduces the time of loading of the web pages.
• Increases the usability of the website: this also implies indirectly, that the page may be displayed from any browser.
• We show that we are socially involved.
• Increases the human capital of learning communities by enhancing collective intelligence.