Web accessibility means that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact and contribute to the Web
A common acronym is POUR: Perceivable. Operable. Understandable. Robust.
The Curb-Cut Effect is a vibrant illustration of how laws and programs designed to benefit vulnerable groups, such as the disabled or people of color, result in benefiting all.
Accessibility helps everyone.
A11y features are designed to improve the lives of everyone, not just a permanent set of individuals.
A11y is an ever changing human state. A customer that could see perfectly last month may not be able to the following month or year.
Accessible websites can be incredibly useful for people with temporary disabilities and situational disabilities, such as:
A broken arm
Temporary vision loss
Poor internet connection
Browsing a mobile app in direct sunlight
Misplaced glasses
Many users that would not claim to have a disability, but still benefit from accessibility features.
Accessibility is not just about focusing on people that claim they have a specific disability.
Thus why it should be a standard across all users, not targeted to a niche group.
Visual (e.g. non-sighted, myopia, color blindness, etc.)
Auditory
Motor
Cognitive
Temporarily disabled users (e. g. one-handed phone users)
Translating those into development, it usually means being concerned about:
Semantics
Keyboard inputs
Text alternatives
Color Contrast
While designing and developing a product, you should always:
Make sure you convey meaning through form, not only color.
Make sure your product is resizable.
Make sure your content subjects are distinguishable.
Make sure you follow the guidelines from the W3C.
Example: Color Blind
Not color blindProtanomalyProtanopiaAchromatopsia
Example: Tunnel Vision
Without tunnel visionWith tunnel vision
Accessibility & Inclusion are human issues that should be resolved, not because of the legal or monetary risk, but because the ability to use the web should be a universal right for everyone.
Where is OMF right now?
Accessibility in the Current State of OMF
A critical step in A11Y compliance is determining the current status of the company's compliance level or score.
Once the audit is complete, a game plan can be drawn up to determine the best course of action.
Assets to be checked in an audit:
Websites & Applications
PDF's
HTML Emails
Mobile Applications
A cursory audit of 15 OMF assets (Websites & PDF's) have been completed as of today.
List of the most common issues:
Websites
Background and foreground colors do not have a sufficient contrast ratio.
Heading elements are not in sequential order.
Form element inputs do not have associated labels.
Focusable child elements exists inside a hidden ARIA element.
Modals do not get focused or trapped when displayed on-screen.
Buttons do not have accessible names.
Child ARIA elements do not contain a specific role required by parent ARIA element.
Focusable child elements exists inside a hidden ARIA element.
PDF's
Document titles are missing.
Images and figures inserted into a pdf are missing alternative text.
Headings are not in sequential order and incorrectly nested.
Missing table headers.
Accessibility Statements
Outside of the technical remedies, OMF should add an Accessibility statement to its digital asset pages.
An Accessibility Statement is a declaration of goals and intentions regarding the company's accessibility efforts.
It informs the user that the work for a11y compliance is part of a universal business goal and the effort is active and on-going.
It also helps dissuade litigation, as it shows the company is aware of the need for a11y compliance and the needs of users.
It is recommended to include a contact method in the statement, as it shows the company is available for further discussion and resolutions.
A growing number of legal precedents have been made over the last ten years, regarding the legal requirements of accessibility compliance in companies digital assets.
ADA Title III website accessibility lawsuits filed in federal courts increased 14% in 2021 aided by a huge November spike in filings.
The number of U.S. lawsuits alleging that websites, apps and digital videos were inaccessible to people with disabilities rose 64% in the first half of 2021 from a year earlier.
It is predicted that there will be more than 4,000 such lawsuits for all of 2021, if trends hold.
11 lawsuits are filed every day in U.S. courts over website inaccessibility.
82% of the top internet e-commerce retailers have been targeted for discrimination over the last four years, alleging that their websites are inaccessible.
Currently, the legal landscape is dominated by plaintiff firms. These firms are preparing over 30 cases a month, which indicates a "surf by" method.
This means, oftentimes, legal recourse is not coming from any actual use case, but using accessibility testing tools to determine the site compliance level, and filing a claim if any issues are found.
Guillermo Robles, who is blind, sued the pizza chain in 2016 after he was unable to order from dominos.com or mobile app using his screen-reader software.
In June 2021, federal Judge Jesus Bernal ruled that Domino's site violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Unruh Civil Rights Act.
The court ordered the company to make its website accessible and pay $4,000, plus attorney fees, to Mr. Robles.
Considering the length and intensity of the case, the fee award will be substantially higher.
This is not about if we make our products and services available and accessible . This is about when.
— Caroline Casey, founder of The Valuable 500
We are all living in a digital age. The opportunity to embrace it quickly will lead to business growth. And the risk to fighting it can be detrimental.
— Caroline Casey, founder of The Valuable 500
Beyonce
In January 2019, Mary Conner filed a lawsuit against Parkwood Entertainment, Beyonce Knowles company, claiming beyonce.com was inaccessible to visually impaired users, not giving them access to products and services.
The suit claims multiple WCAG guideline infractions, including missing alternate text for imagery, inaccessible dropdown menus, and the lack of keyboard integration.
Conner seeks a court injunction that would require Parkwood Entertainment to make the site accessible based on ADA requirements, and is pursuing damages for those who have “been subject to unlawful discrimination”.
This case is still on going, an indicator of how lengthy these trials can become, whichcontributes to cost , as well as, negative brand exposure.
There is no indication this legal action trend is slowing. In fact, it appears to be growing.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was created to prohibit discrimination based on disability, as well as, provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.
In 1998 the US Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities.
This is what is referred to as 508 Compliance
The 1950 Unruh Civil Rights Act prohibits any business in California from engaging in unlawful discrimination based on a person's sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship, primary language, or immigration status.
Other countries:
In Canada, there is the 2005 Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).
There is the European Accessibility Standard or EN 301 549EU EN 301 549.
In the U.S., these judgements are being handled by Circuit Courts.
There are disagreements across circuits as to how the law is applied.
In March, the Dept. of Justice put some clarity on the matter.
Kinda...
"The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires the accessibility of websites."
DOJ Recommendations:
Leadership Commitment
Manual and Automated audits
Conduct periodic audits
Adopt Remediation and Content Policies
Post an Accessibility Statement
DOJ Recommendations (cont'd):
Up-skill developers and content creators
Test new content before releasing
Demand accessibility from vendors
Avoid overlays
Be aware of industry specific requirements
What's the plan for OMF?
Accessibility in the OMF Brand & Strategy
OMF Mission
The Brand Mission and Strategic Plan bullet points align well with an Accessibility Initiative.
To improve the financial well-being of hard-working Americans.
This means everyone.
Every relationship starts with a human connection.
OMF should stand out from its competitors by committing to a strong accessibility compliance standard to further bolster that human connection.
First impressions are critical.
If a customer visits an OMF digital asset and has a positive experience, it is likely that user will spread that information to others.
The same goes for a negative experience.
OneMain believes you should "Come as you are".
This aligns well with the holistic accessibility concept of acceptance of all. We are dedicated to being a force for good for each individual.
A major engagement of OMF is to make lending accessible.
While the general meaning of this is to make lending information transparent and easily accessed, it also translates well into assuring all information and actions of OneMain digital assets are accessible to everyone.
The mission of Accessibility and Inclusion aligns perfectly with the Strategic plan, as well.
...with a little paraphrasing...
Focus on our customer experiences and expanding digital capabilities.
A11y, at its core, is about improving the customer experience. With ever-improving technology in the market today, we can integrate the A11y initiative in all of our digital assets.
Focus on analytics and data science, introducing more data-driven insights and models into distribution.
An important factor in accessibility compliance is anticipating and planning feature releases. This assures you have researched the outcome before it reaches the consumer.
By using the metrics from the data science, OMF can release products with the piece of mind that all a11y related tasks have been checked and completed.
Mature our foundational capabilities, including working with technology to help increase the maturity, reliability and availability of our core systems.
OMF can leverage the vast number of a11y options available to integrate into these core systems, maturing the products and company.
Improve our customer's well-being, ensuring our reputation as a responsible lender is known in the market, and continue our efforts to make OneMain a great place to work and grow for all team members.
Accessibility and Inclusion are about improving the lives and experiences of people. What a exceptional time to be part of the solution!
A11y should be a focus for all of the people of OMF, internally and externally.
Where do we begin?
Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
– Lewis Carroll
Accessibility in User Testing
Accessibility begins at the research phase.
Planning a design with accessibility in mind at first assures all facets of a better, more inclusive design is enveloped in the entire design philosophy and not an afterthought.
Tests need to be created and distributed prior to the design phase to know what needs to be addressed.
Accessibility considerations should remain a common thread through the research process, into the design layout phase, and ending with all facets, from the overall structure to individual components having been considered and tested to meet accessibility requirements.
Tests should also be administered following a release to confirm the issues found in the initial test have been resolved, as well as, establish any new issues that may have arisen with the updated layout and code.
The practice of bookending user testing creates an end-to-end feedback loop which is constantly informing and adapting the application experience.
Resources:
We can use our current User Testing application to conduct the research needed to make fully accessible design decisions.
Knowbility offers services that find testers needed for accessibility testing.
Fable has an Accessible Usability Scale (AUS) that pairs well with the System Usability Scale (SUS) currently used by the UX Research team.
How do we execute our vision?
Accessibility in Development & Automation
Writing fully accessible code, improves the product in many ways.
Usability
Compliance
Quality Assurance
SEO
All a developer needs to write fully accessible code is already built into the fabric of html.
Terminology
When writing code, knowledge of major accessibility attributes is important.
Here is a selection of some of the more critical a11y attributes that developers need to incorporate in their development:
ARIA Roles & Attributes
The ARIA-Role describes the role of an element in programs that can make use of it, such as screen readers or magnifiers.
ARIA Attributes define the current state of the page or page element
TabIndex
The tabindex attribute indicates that its element can be focused, and where it participates in sequential keyboard navigation
Focus indicator
The focus indicator is typically native to the browser and serves as a visual aid to which element is focused at the current moment.
Keyboard input binding
It's important to bind user behavior to a keyboard, as well as, a mouse or touch.
Do we get anything for free?
When a design gets moved into code, we can leverage some accessibility checks and tasks to plugins and automated scripts.
We can integrate this effort at two points in the development workflow.
Storybook
When a component is added to Storybook, we can utilize the a11y add-on, which uses the Axe Accessibility Engine, to check accessibility requirements.
This will compartmentalize the component, allowing for focused testing on individual pieces before moving into the full application layout.
Storybook
An added bonus, the plugin can emulate color blindness, which adds another layer of assurance that what the developers are building will pass tests in the production environment.
Build Scripts & Unit Testing
NPM and Unit Testing scripts , such as pa11y (Pally), ngARIA, accessibility-checker, etc. will act as the third layer of compliance checking.
These automated tests will check components and urls and report back any offending accessibility issues.
These scripts use the WCAG specification to determine flaws in the code. If the number of issues breaks the established threshold of tolerance, the build will fail, forcing the developer to resolve issues before committing any code.
This assures no code is ever committed that has not gone through a proper technical check of accessibility.
The final bookend to a11y assurances is with automated technical checks and final user testing in a staging environment, prior to a production release.
By retesting the work, it creates a feedback loop which confirms successful changes and remediates regressions.
Many lawsuits in 2021 list widgets and overlay features as a barrier to equal access in addition to other inaccessible aspects of the website. This means these approaches give plaintiffs more claims to add to a lawsuit, not less.
Do pdf's and images matter?
Accessibility in Asset Management
Files need a11y checks too.
Another layer of protection needs to be implemented on assets uploaded to sites and applications.
Because assets, such as images and pdf's are not constructed by application code, they will need to be checked individually when uploaded.
Ideally, we would do this using an asset management system, which would assure all images have alt text and pdf's are passing accessible guidelines.
Disability is not just a health problem. It is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person's body and features of the society in which he or she lives.
XBOX Adaptive Controller
The Apaptive Controller can connect to a variety of external switches, buttons, mounts, and joysticks to customize your Xbox experience.
Microsoft 365 continues to grow its rich accessibility feature list in it's software line, offering fully compatible integrations with assistive tech, real-time subtitles, and speech-to-text dictation.
This started as an internal tool, which Microsoft then released as open source. The tool is now available as an extension in Microsoft Edge and Chrome, letting users perform a “fast pass scan” that finds many accessibility issues in seconds to help developers quickly determine what to fix.
We have a responsibility and an opportunity to build accessibility into everything we do. It helps us empower all people to achieve more, including people with disabilities.
We absolutely believe there's a business case for accessibility. It starts with the billion people in the world that have some sort of a disability, and wanting to be able to tap into the power of that part of the workforce.
And then the business case extends to just about everyone because, time after time, it's been shown that something that gets done for accessibility winds up creating a more usable experience for far more people.
Research from Accenture, titled “The Disability Inclusion Advantage,” found that the 45 companies it identified as leaders in areas specific to disability employment and inclusion had:
28% higher revenue
2x net income
30% higher economic profit margins
The analysis also revealed that U.S. GDP could get a boost of up to $25 billion if more persons with disabilities joined the labor force.
There are huge opportunities for making workforces more inclusive through accessibility, and technology plays an important role. Companies that embrace best practices for employees, supporting people with disabilities, outperform their peers.
What makes a blueberry muffin is not adding blueberries to an existing muffin.
It is actually baking a blueberry muffin from the beginning.
Making a product accessible is not adding a few roles and ARIA labels after it's built, but it is actually having accessibility in mind from the very start.
Would you prefer a proverb?
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.
What about some lyrics?
It has to start someplace. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?
Conclusion
Accessibility isn't a burden. it's an investment
High cost and lack of funding were the most common answers given when companies were asked why they were not implementing accessibility strategies, based on a 2016 Forrester Research Economic Impact Study.
It's true that building accessibility into your business's processes will require time and effort.
However, contrary to popular misconception, it's not a profit-depleting mess of bureaucratic red tape.
By improving user experiences and expanding your audience, accessibility provides a fast and dependable return on investment.
Prioritizing accessibility can reduce the long-term development costs of digital content. It can instantly enhance profits and brand image while improving staff morale.
In short, it offers both practical and intangible benefits.
Good accessibility practices force good design, clean development, and prioritization of goals in a application.
How do we do this?
Action
Automation
Advocacy
Action
Start today.
Use the ABC's - Always be changing.
Embrace "Practice makes Progress".
Grow our team of accessibility experts.
Automation
Insert checks in our research, design, development, and CI/CD pipeline.
Add checks for our distributed materials and assets.
Advocacy
Join the Accessibility Action Team (AAT)
Create a Community of Practice.
Create and distribute a knowledge base.
Protracing our steps
Knowing where we need to be in the future allows us to make informed decisions on our actions today.
I need YOU!
If you would like to be a part of the Accessibility Action Team, send an email to carey.estes@omf.com to get signed up.
