Ensuring Digital Accessibility: Making Your Systems Inclusive for All Users

• 26-02-2024

Are Your Systems Accessible?

Are You Ensuring All Users Can Access Your Digital Services?

In a world where digital interactions are increasingly integral to daily life, ensuring that all users can access your digital services is essential. With 14.1 million disabled people in the UK alone, the necessity of accessible digital services becomes even more apparent. Here's a closer look at the breakdown of this statistic:

• 8% of children are disabled
• 19% of working-age adults are disabled
• 46% of pension-age adults are disabled

These figures highlight a critical need: ensuring that digital services are inclusive and accessible to everyone. However, a startling WebAIM report found that 97.8% of home pages have detectable Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 AA failures. This significant gap underscores the urgency of addressing digital accessibility to ensure inclusivity and equal access.

At Energise Technology: Your Partner in Accessibility

At Energise Technology, we are committed to assisting organisations in making their digital services accessible to all users. We help you identify where your website and organisational systems fall short of accessibility standards and create a detailed plan to remedy these issues. Our approach is both comprehensive and tailored to your needs, combining advanced tools with human insights to deliver optimal results.

Our Approach to Accessibility

Defining Personas and User Journeys

Understanding who uses your services and how they interact with them is the first step toward making your digital services accessible. We collaborate with you to:

• Identify Key User Groups: This includes children, working-age adults, and pension-age adults, each with distinct accessibility needs.
• Map Out User Journeys: We track the paths these users take through your software, identifying critical points where accessibility issues may arise. This ensures our testing covers all essential functionalities.

By defining personas and user journeys, we tailor our accessibility testing to meet the specific needs of your users, resulting in a more thorough and effective assessment of your digital services.

WCAG 2.1 Compliance Check

Compliance with WCAG 2.1 standards is crucial for ensuring your digital services are accessible. Our compliance check includes:

• Using Industry-Leading Testing Tools: We utilize tools like WAVE, Tenon, aXe, and Lynx to evaluate your systems.
• Documenting Issues: We meticulously document any issues found, providing detailed descriptions and severity ratings.
• Suggesting Fixes: We offer actionable recommendations to address identified issues, helping you achieve WCAG 2.1 compliance.

Our compliance checks go beyond static web pages, covering end-to-end processes to ensure comprehensive accessibility across all parts of your digital services.

Real Testing with Real Users

Automated tools can only detect so much. To uncover the full range of accessibility issues, it's crucial to get feedback from real users who rely on assistive technologies. Our real user testing involves:

• Engaging Users of Assistive Technologies: We include testers who use screen readers, magnifiers, alternative input devices, and other assistive technologies daily.
• Gathering In-Depth Feedback: These users provide insights that automated tools might miss, such as usability issues and difficulties in navigation.
• Validating Automated Findings: Real user testing helps verify the issues detected by automated tools and often reveals additional problems requiring attention.

This combination of automated testing and real user feedback ensures a more thorough and accurate assessment of your digital services.

Taking Action to Improve Your Software

Identifying accessibility issues is just the beginning. Implementing necessary changes is where real improvement happens. We support you in:

• Prioritising Issues: Based on the severity and impact of identified issues, we help you prioritise fixes that will benefit your users the most.
• Implementing Recommendations: We work closely with your development team to implement our recommendations effectively, which may involve code changes, design adjustments, and improving content accessibility.
• Continuous Improvement: Accessibility is an ongoing task. We help you establish processes for continuous evaluation and improvement, ensuring your digital services remain accessible as they evolve.

Our collaborative approach ensures that changes integrate smoothly into your existing workflows, minimising disruption while maximising impact.

Embedding Automated Accessibility Testing

For organisations with in-house development teams, integrating automated accessibility testing into your standard development and release cycles is essential. We assist you in:

• Selecting the Right Tools: We help you choose and configure the best-automated testing tools for your needs.
• Integrating Testing into Workflows: We work with your team to embed accessibility testing into your development processes, ensuring it becomes a standard part of your workflow.
• Training and Support: We train your developers and testers on effectively using the tools and interpreting results. Ongoing support ensures your team maintains high accessibility standards.

By embedding automated testing into your workflows, you can continuously monitor and improve accessibility, catching issues early in the development process.

Why Accessibility Matters

Ensuring your digital services are accessible is not just about compliance; it's about inclusion and equal access for all users. Here are a few reasons why accessibility should be a priority for your organisation:

Legal Compliance

In many regions, including the UK, there are legal requirements for digital accessibility. Non-compliance can result in legal action and fines. Ensuring your digital services meet WCAG standards helps you stay compliant with regulations such as the Equality Act 2010.

Improved User Experience

Accessible design often leads to a better overall user experience. By making your services accessible, you improve usability for all users, not just those with disabilities. This can lead to higher user satisfaction and engagement.

Broader Audience Reach

By ensuring your digital services are accessible, you can reach a broader audience, including the 14.1 million disabled people in the UK, as well as others who may have temporary or situational disabilities.

Enhanced Reputation

Demonstrating a commitment to accessibility can enhance your organisation's reputation. It shows that you value inclusivity and are dedicated to providing equal access to your services. This can build trust and loyalty among your users.

Let's Make Your Digital Services Accessible

We believe that everyone should have equal access to digital services. At Energise Technology, we are dedicated to helping you achieve this goal. Our comprehensive accessibility solutions are designed to identify and address accessibility issues, ensuring your digital services are inclusive for all users.

Contact us today to learn more about our accessibility services and how we can help your organisation. Together, we can make your digital services accessible to everyone.