WCAG compliance is a more process-y bit of news. Therefore we share how we are taking responsibility to ensure all site visitors can find the information they need.
What is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Compliance?
WCAG compliance means making websites and digital content accessible to people with disabilities. Specifically, this comes from guidelines by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
These guidelines naturally include consideration of visual, auditory, cognitive, motor, and other disabilities.
Why Does WCAG Compliance Matter?
When we make a website, or some other digital content, of course, we want the user to be able to access our message. To see or hear it, understand it. And that means for everyone, including those with disabilities.
For example, maybe we show our new Dynamic Translation feature in a screenshot. But a website visitor with visual impairment cannot see what we are showing. They are losing some of the understanding that the image provides. WCAG reminds us that writing descriptive Alternative Text (alt text) for images can help.
Transparency in All We Do
uQualio recently performed a full audit of the WCAG 2.2 AA compliance requirements on our website. The results of the audit revealed a couple of areas out of a possible 55 where we need to improve upon. We always want to provide the best accessibility user experience, along with transparency.
Here are the errors from the audit:
- Success criterion 1.3.5: Identify Input Purpose. A form field was missing enough description to possibly not understand the purpose.
We want all our site visitors to know why we may ask for specific information when they interact with us.
- Success criterion 2.4.4: Link Purpose (In Context). On one of our web pages, a link did not have enough description of what the link does. Also, the material surrounding the link might not provide context clues for the purpose of the link.
The more we consider the experience of disabled users on our site, the more we improve. Are they reading the content? Do they need to hear it? Moreover, what else can we do to reach everyone?
We will be correcting the two issues found in our audit, and will continue to perform complete audits annually. You can view our Accessibility Statement with WCAG Reports on our Legal Term page.
Making Learning Accessible to All – the Point of WCAG Compliance
Learning should be available for all, not only on our uQualio LMS platform, but on our own website.
These are terrific lessons for us in improving our website. But also to remind our uQualio user community of learning accessibility. When creating your video courses and training, remember to consider all of your users.
Let Us Know How We Can Help
uQualio wants to particularly be able to reach everyone, as part of our mission to make learning accessible for all. But we are not perfect. For this reason, we always encourage our users or site visitors to ask us anything.
Do you have to reach users with your courses who may need more assistance? In that case, see our earlier post about Accessibility in E-Learning: Key Trends Today. Do you have specific questions related to WCAG compliance for your training you would like us to write about? Just contact us at support@uqualio.com or ask your question when you sign up for the next weekly Office Hours webinar.
