Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. Web accessibility also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging.
Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the Web, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities. The document "How People with Disabilities Use the Web" describes how different disabilities affect Web use and includes scenarios of people with disabilities using the Web.
Millions of people have disabilities that affect their use of the Web. Currently most Web sites and Web software have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for many people with disabilities to use the Web. As more accessible Web sites and software become available, people with disabilities are able to use and contribute to the Web more effectively.
Web accessibility also benefits people without disabilities. For example, a key principle of Web accessibility is designing Web sites and software that are flexible to meet different user needs, preferences, and situations. This flexibility also benefits people without disabilities in certain situations, such as people using a slow Internet connection, people with "temporary disabilities" such as a broken arm, and people with changing abilities due to aging. The document "Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization" describes many different benefits of Web accessibility, including benefits for organizations.
source W3C
An accessible web is important to let everyone experience the web equally. The Administration requires such standards to give equal access to information that is important for everyone.
Accessibility is required on websites for the Swiss Administration. All the good practices and standards from WCAG should be used.
The styleguide includes all the aria- attributes that should be used. Keep
in mind to always update them accordingly and to run some tests.
More documentation on aria- attributes can be found on
www.w3.org.
We optimized the styleguide for the NVDA screen reader. It is the most used screen reader and is fully free and open source. We suggest testing every component with this tool. All these requirements should be met.
- Tabbing through the page is smooth and logical.
- No useless element (eg: an icon before a link) is being read by the screen reader
- All navigations or unclear buttons/links/info should be preceded by a title
with the standard Bootstrap class
sr-onlythat explains what the following element is about. - All table rows and columns should be clearly read by the screen reader
- All key events should behave as you'd expect.
Please refer to the Accessibility Checklist for a good starting point.
Another checklist from webaim.org: http://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist.
Bootstrap has a few starting classes and indicate some good references you can find on their site. Please refer to them and don't create new classes or behaviors.