The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the most widely recognized, and popular standards for evaluating the accessibility of websites, and various other types of content on the internet. WCAG essentially requires web content to be perceivable to the users. User interface and information components must be presented in a manner that is understood and recognized by all users. If a person cannot perceive the content of a webpage, the page would not accessible. Through AccessiBe one can easily find out whether their website is WCAG and ADA compliant or not.
AccessiBe shares valuable insights on making a website perceivable
To make sure that all online users are able to benefit from a website, its content should be easily convertible between variety of formats, or should include alternatives that are functionally equivalent. For instance, WCAG requires pre-recorded videos to have closed captions or transcripts so that users having hearing disabilities can perceive the audio content as equally well as any user without disabilities.
Assistive technologies like braille displays and screen readers are vital to perceivability. A lot of people having disabilities tend to interact with the web with the use of these technologies. Therefore, they depend on websites to be compatible with them.
WCAG 2.1 standards, includes include a number of important guidelines that are focused on improving the perceivability of website content. Some of these guidelines are:
Orientation:
Websites and apps must support both landscape and portrait modes, unless a certain style is absolutely necessary. Doing so would allow users with visual disabilities to rotate their mobile devices to increase the size of the text.
Identify input purpose:
Websites must include indications about what type of data has to be entered in a field. Doing so would enable the browser to auto-fill certain forms, as well as allow assistive technologies to better inform the users about the purpose of distinctive fields.
Identify purpose:
Interface components like icons must have particular labels within the code that can be interpreted by assistive technologies. For instance, a button that returns the users to the main page must be labeled as the “home button.”
Reflow:
Websites should make use of responsive design so that the text on the screen can be enlarged, while preserving the layout.
Non-text contrast:
In order to aid users having low vision, active interface components and non-text content must have a contrast ratio of 3:1 at least.
Text spacing:
Users should be able to increase the spacing between paragraphs, lines, and words without having to reduce functionality.
Content on hover or focus:
Users must be able to dismiss any kind of pop-up content that appears in a modal window or tooltip whenever they want, without having to move the pointer hover or the keyboard focus.
In a large number of cases, the key to perceivability involves converting non-textual content into text, so that it can be processed by the assistive technologies as per the user’s choice. Web accessibility companies like AccessiBe can help people to make their websites adequately perceivable.Making internet accessible is the top priority of this company.