Accessibility

What is accessibility?

Accessibility means designing products, services, and environments that people with disabilities can use. It addresses barriers involving vision, hearing, movement, and cognition.

How it works

On the web, accessibility involves such things as keyboard navigation, captions, readable contrast, and meaningful page structure. A news site should let someone navigate its articles without a mouse and understand its images without seeing them.

Text alternatives

W3C’s guidance on text alternatives distinguishes informative images from purely decorative ones. Informative images need an appropriate alternative; decorative images should be ignored by assistive technology.

Visual hierarchy and contrast

Visual hierarchy and contrast also deserve attention. WCAG 2.2’s minimum text-contrast criterion generally requires 4.5:1, or 3:1 for large text, with specified exceptions.

Why it matters

A well-designed feature is of little use to someone who cannot operate it. Removing access barriers can also help people dealing with temporary or situational difficulties, such as a broken arm or bright sunlight.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines give teams technical criteria to work with. Use them alongside evaluation of the tasks people need to complete. Checking a few criteria is a start, not evidence that the entire product works for all its users; legal requirements also depend on the jurisdiction and service.