EPALE - Electronic Platform for Adult Learning in Europe

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Digital accessibility is often viewed as a costly and time-consuming online pursuit. However, upon closer inspection, digital accessibility is an absolute necessity for a modern online appearance, and ultimately saves users and site operators alike a great deal of time, stress, and money.

We reveal the five most important reasons why you should make your website barrier-free, namely: digital participation, search-engine optimisation, a wider audience, an improved user experience, and legal compliance. This reasoning is rooted in our experiences in providing one of the most far-reaching online portals: erwachsenenbildung.at (further details on this at the end of the article).

1. Barrier-free content promotes digital participation and online information for everyone

By making our websites and online content barrier-free, we ensure that people with disabilities and those without disabilities have an opportunity to inform themselves and participate independently in society. For the sake of inclusion, many informational barriers still need to be removed online.

For instance, texts with insufficient contrast compared to the background may be unreadable for persons with visual impairments. Blind people often make use of assistive technology such as screen readers, which read the contents to them. However, if images, forms, or buttons do not contain written descriptions or do not feature so-called alternative text, then it may be impossible for blind users to perceive or utilise them. Explanatory videos which do not contain subtitles are of no use to people with hearing impairments. And websites optimised for desktop viewing are often of little use to smartphone users.

Digital accessibility affects people with motor, visual, hearing, or cognitive impairments. At the same time, it also helps people with temporary impairments or those whose native language is not German, for example. Others who benefit from it include people with reading and writing disabilities as well as inexperienced Internet users and mobile users.

The German NGO Aktion Mensch sums it up quite nicely: For 10% of people, digital accessibility is indispensable; for 30%, it is necessary; and for 100% of users, it is helpful.

2.  A barrier-free design lets your website operate across all types of devices

When websites are created nowadays, they should always include the aspect of responsive design. This allows content to be adapted for various devices (such as notebooks and smartphones) and to be displayed optimally. If online information and interactions are to be accessible to all people, then they should likewise be so for all devices.

Digital accessibility therefore demands a maximum level of responsiveness, which gives users freedom of choice regarding which device to use. People interested in education could thus just as easily find information on further training opportunities on the computer screens in their office as they can on their smartphones on a park bench.

3. Barrier-free websites are easier to find

As a first step, people interested in education like to ask search engines such as Google and the like. At the same time, site operators invest a lot of time and money in search-engine optimisation (SEO) so that their online content can be found by search engines and also to increase their reach to potential users. And now comes the good news: If you invest time and financial resources in setting up a barrier-free website, these measures also have a very positive impact on search-engine optimisation.

This is because, for instance, alternative texts not only allow screen readers to access the information, they also let search engines read it. The same applies to measures such as subtitles and transcripts of video and audio contents. Google and other search engines want to “understand”, and accessibility aims to achieve the same for users. For this reason, it is particularly important not only to identify headings as such, but also to write the texts in a way that is semantically solid and clearly comprehensible.

4. Accessibility helps your users find what they are looking for

Navigating through the veritable jungle of educational offerings already poses a challenge for potential students. Finding answers on educational websites often represents a further challenge and can test the patience of users. Users visiting your website want to be able to find what they are looking for quickly. This requires that it be both easy to operate and intuitive to use. These elements are particularly relevant in the case of barrier-free websites.

For existing websites, this means tidying up and decluttering to make room for more important content. If websites are to stay tidy, common editorial standards, such as employing web templates and bidding farewell to home-made solutions, can be useful. The back-end programmers would also be most thankful to you for this, because it simplifies maintenance efforts, while ultimately also saving you money. Most grateful of all would be the users, as they happily navigate through your website and gladly visit again.

5. Digital accessibility is backed by legislation

The right to digital accessibility is regulated by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Article 21) and by the Austrian Disability Equality Act (Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz).

As of 23 September 2020, the EU Directive 2016/2102 and the Austrian Web Accessibility Act (Web-Zugänglichkeits-Gesetz; WZG) are also in effect in Austria. These laws state that new content on public-sector websites is to be presented in a barrier-free manner. Legislation in the form of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provides defined standards which you can use to assess your own website.

In short, the WCAG require – in the form of four overall principles – that:

• all users must be able to perceive the information being presented,
• all users must be able to operate the interface,
• all users must be able to understand the information and operation of the user interface, and that
• the content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted by a wide variety of technologies.

Yes, and that is what all of us actually want.

From experience

Digital accessibility is implemented in the everyday editing activities at erwachsenenbildung.at. We include it in all stages of development and improve every day. In June 2022, we shared our experiences in this topic with people interested in adult education in a webinar on barrier-free online educational information (Webinar zur Barrierefreien Online-Bildungsinformation) and have also already described our experiences in articles published on EPALE, such as: “Bildungsinformation barrierefrei aufbereiten: ein paar Tipps” (Making educational information accessible: a few tips) and “Bildungsinformation barrierefrei gestalten: Stolpersteine und Widersprüche” (Making educational information accessible: obstacles and contradictions). The main objective of digital accessibility is to make web contents easily accessible to everyone. This message – and the urgent need for its implementation – reached our participants long ago already. However, it requires commitment and dedication from all involved parties for digital accessibility to be truly achieved. The above-mentioned five reasons were sufficient to convince our entire team.

Further information

• “Schritt für Schritt zur barrierefreien Online-Bildungsinformation” (Step by step towards barrier-free online educational information)
• “Web-Zugänglichkeits-Gesetz” (Austrian Web Accessibility Act)
• “WCAG 2.1-Kriterien” (WCAG 2.1 criteria)
• “Bildungsinformation barrierefrei aufbereiten: ein paar Tipps” (Making educational information accessible: a few tips)
• “Bildungsinformation barrierefrei gestalten: Stolpersteine und Widersprüche” (Making educational information accessible: obstacles and contradictions

Text/Author of original article in German: Sabine Schnepfleitner/CONEDU

Redaktion/Editing of original article in German: Wilfried Frei/CONEDU

Title picture: Unsplash licence, Rodolfo Clix, unsplash.com