The Importance of Digital Accessibility
According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), 15-20% of people worldwide have some form of disability, making it challenging for them to use websites and web applications as easily as everyone else.
As access to the web is an increasingly essential part of daily life, equal use for people with disabilities is fundamental, not just for those users, but also for suppliers and society as a whole.
Need help making your website fully accessible?
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Accessibility Guidelines
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organisation for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994, W3C develops standards and guidelines to help everyone build a web based on the principles of accessibility, internationalisation, privacy and security.
W3C has defined a set of web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) in the four following key areas:
- Perceivable – e.g. text alternatives for non-text content, captions for multimedia, and different ways to present content (such as use of assistive technology)
- Operable – e.g. all functionality via a keyboard, ease of navigation and content search, and sufficient time to read and use content
- Understandable – e.g. readable and understandable text, and content appearing in predictable ways
- Robust – ensure compatibility with current and future user tools
How can Tier 2 help?
Tier 2’s development team has extensive experience helping organisations ensure that their web applications comply with web accessibility standards. Our experts have delivered apps which have been tested and verified for compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), as well as user-tested by people with disabilities, meaning that anyone with a disability should be able to move through the online journey and fully access the content.
We can work together with customers to help ensure all users, including people with a wide range of disabilities, can understand what is on each webpage and can use your website forms through to completion.
“Our team of developers and testers have built applications to an AA accessibility standard – including forms, checkboxes, and interactive elements – and can offer this service to other companies wishing to make their sites fully accessible.”
Andy Kennedy
Managing Director, Tier 2 Consulting
Customer success story: Removing digital accessibility barriers
Tier 2 worked closely with customer Bequeathed, a legacy fundraising company, to help them develop a new inclusive and accessible free will-writing service. This project saw cross-collaboration with Hassell Inclusion and The Royal National Institute of Blind People.
For more information about our work with Bequeathed, please visit our recent case study, detailing the company’s growth through the power of software development:
Need help making your website fully accessible?
If you need help implementing accessibility standards in your web applications, discover more about our accessibility expertise and get in touch for a free consultation with one of our development experts.
