100 points to know about...
Digital accessibility

Throughout the design and deployment process of your accessible digital project, many tools are available to help you develop your digital accessibility strategy.
In this video, discover the type of tools your team can refer to:

For more information about accessibility tools, you can also refer to Lesson 13.

Accessibility assessment tools

The W3C provide a very useful list of free assessment tools (software programs or online services) that help you determine if your web content meets the accessibility guidelines (https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/)
They can help you quickly identify potential accessibility issues. Tools can provide fully-automated checks, and help you with manual review. But be careful, web accessibility evaluation tools can not determine accessibility, they can only assist in doing so.

Accessibility audits of your digital services

The accessibility audit takes into account technical aspects (such as the correct use of certain HTML tags) but also semantic aspects (such as the clarity of the wording). The technical audit can be, for the most part, automated. The rest requires human intelligence.

Perform several rounds of auditing by experts

One of the functional tests that an accessibility expert can do is to test the site as a user would and make sure that the site is compliant with current standards.

Few examples of tests:

Some tests to perform on a screen reader to help you in your accessibility strategy:

• The vocalization of all visible information (titles, paragraphs, link labels, form field labels, quotes, information-carrying images, etc.)
• The vocalization of the page structuring (level title, page zone, frame title, bulleted list, etc.)
• Verify access to all the functionalities present in the site (links, buttons, forms, calendar, menu, drop-down lists, etc.)
• Test the changes of state of the components (selected or not, accordion open or closed...)
• Etc.

You (or an accessibility expert) can also perform manual tests from the web browser:

• Disable style sheets to verify that all information remains present,
• Evaluate the color contrasts (in addition to the automatic tests) via tools such as "Contrast checker",
• Enlarge the text to 200% to ensure that all information remains legible,
• Reduce the size of the window in order to verify the adaptation of the site to all screen sizes,
• etc.

Tests carried out by people with disabilities

Beyond compliance with standards, it is essential to evaluate the accessibility of its web content with (real) users with disabilities, users who are far from digital, elderly users... This is the only way to bring up accessibility problems that escape automated analysis.

Don't forget to evaluate the third-party services you use

Make an inventory of all the external services you integrate on your site and make sure they are compliant in terms of accessibility (payment module, chat module, evaluation module...). Do not hesitate to contact these providers to know their policy on accessibility.

Recruiting new digital accessibility professionals

New jobs and new skills are emerging within the company and are opportunities to develop one's company or one's career path. Here are some examples:

• Auditor / Expert in digital accessibility: experts trained according to WCAG 2.1 and RGAA 4.0 (French Accessibility Guidelines based on WCAG2 also available in English, with a set of helpful technical documents to easily check if your web page respects the WCAG guidelines or not) requirements are increasingly specializing in new professions. They assist companies in the accessibility of their digital content. It is to ensure that everything is compliant on the website and to guarantee optimal accessibility during all stages of the project. To do this, tests are carried out in order to identify any non-compliance errors on all levels: technical, graphic and editorial. The digital accessibility expert then proposes customized improvement solutions to meet the company's accessibility needs.
• Digital e-Accessibility Coordinator: the digital e-accessibility consultant is responsible for the development and implementation of the accessibility strategy in his organization throughout the accessibility projects of the company.
• Digital accessibility tester
• The digital accessibility tester conducts compliance tests according to a precise methodology to ensure that websites are compliant. At the end of his or her analyses, he or she communicates the results and takes note of any accessibility defects.

A summary of how to get your website checked for accessibility: