What are these rules?
These rules are defined by the Government of Quebec, in collaboration with the Office des personnes Handicapés du Québec. They are gathered in a document called “standards on the accessibility of a website”. These standards are constantly evolving, which is why there are many versions of this document, which are constantly adapted. Today we arrive at version 2.0. The standards on the accessibility of a website bring together a large number of rules. Here is some of them.
Who are we talking to exactly?
This content is addressed to a greater number of people with disabilities, including elderly people with loss of autonomy, but also: blind and visually impaired people, deaf and hard of hearing people, people with learning disabilities, cognitive, motor, speech, or photosensitivity limitations, regardless of their culture or language. They also facilitate access for people using less efficient equipment and in any geographical area. Finally, these rules allow users in general to browse web content that is easier to use.
What are these features?
Noticeable
The content of a website must be able to be perceived by each Internet user. We can take the example of an image. We must make sure that it has an alternative text that can be narrated so that it can be understood by a blind person. Conversely, the sound file must have a text transcription to be understood by a deaf person.
Usable
The elements of the content of a website must be usable by each Internet user. We can take the example of the mouse. A person who cannot use a mouse must be able to navigate the site otherwise with voice assistance, for example. It is necessary to think of helping the Internet user to find his way around the site with a search engine, a menu… And functionalities also accessible on the keyboard.
Understandable
The content of a website must be understandable by as many Internet users as possible. We can take the example of the language used. Determining this allows voice synthesis users to be able to hear the pronunciation of the content in their language. Likewise, always remember to make textual content readable and understandable.
Robust
The content of a website must be usable by current or future technologies. But also usable by software that allows a disabled person to use a computer independently to access web content » These are called computer adaptive technologies.
A tool to meet one of the rules of the web?
Very often, the level of contrast during the creation of a website is not the priority. Nevertheless, the contrast is essential to allow optimal accessibility. You should know that 285 million people on the planet live with limited vision. Which is not negligible. The rules of web accessibility make it possible to reduce or remove the obstacles of users facing contrasts on a web page. For example, there are plugins like stark which allow you to compare two colors in order to know if the contrast is sufficient to respect these rules. It also allows you to check the colors against eight different types of color blindness, or check the readability of the text in relation to its size.
Today the internet is an integral part of our lives, both personal and professional. It therefore becomes important to meet these web standards in order to have a website accessible to as many people as possible.
