Benchmarking of accessibility of different e-government digital services and how well do different countries do is a start, but beware!
Tag: EU
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eGovernment Benchmark of 35 countries in Europe (EU and beyond) finally gathered some insights about accessibility of eGovernment websites. After years of accessibility legislation accessibility is still a pilot indicator which unfortunately indicates how late we are in the awareness process.
Brief reflection on 3 years of WAD in EU and short version of attending WAD anniversary event which was really worth attending.
I am honored to be a part of a group of experts that will provide some feedback to European Union on accessibility and Web Accessibility Directive. This post is a summary of my ideas that will be in the article with some additional thoughts and context.
Being busy with accessibility audits because everybody want’s to make their accessibility statements made me think about usefulness of them. When is an usability statement useful? Hint – it’s not about how good your Lighthouse scores are. It’s about how you can help real people with real problems.
Some reflections after two years. Progress is slow, but steady. Personally I would invest into automatic testing solutions to monitor some basics, but that’s probably not possible before stakeholders, politicians and organizations really understand the impacts.
Need for quicker digital product deliveries connected with remote work due to pandemics and the soon-coming European Accessibility Act will most certainly make a gap in the need for accessibility specialists. Current situation of certified accessibility professionals by the IAAP may indicate which countries are more prepared and which less. The fact remains that we need more accessibility specialists and we need them now!
European authorities published accessibility reports from multiple EU lands and I decided to read all of them and make short summary with my personal comment about them. A lot can be learned from their first auditing and there is a lot that can and need to be improved throughout Europe.
If you own an online shop I really suggest that you make it as accessible as possible. European Accessibility Act will require it from you, but let’s rather think about getting more customers, non-discrimination of people with disabilities and better search engine optimization as the main drivers for making eCommerce accessible.
Time flies, pandemic has for sure thought us about the value of digital parallel world and that unfortunately not everybody can be a part of it. European Accessibility Act will try to do something about it. Soon but not so soon. If you are a bank or maybe just a one-person-online-shop, then you should be a bit more serious about your accessibility!
European Accessibility Act became law in 2019 but it will be adopted in 2022. This will add benefits of web accessibility directive also for selected parts of private sector. E-commerce accessibility efforts will benefit all of us, that’s for sure.
Not everybody can or want to use their apps in a single predefined screen orientation. It should be a matter of preference and choice. That is accessibility as well. And we even have it as an WCAG Success Criteria. And yes – it should also be applied to native mobile devices.
Today, 5th of February 2021 a decision was made – EFTA member states – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland will start to integrate European Web Accessibility Directive. Another big step towards an more accessible future.
I have now evaluated some simple and complex websites, and even a whole banking digital presence and here are some notes and thoughts about lessons learned.
After some practical accessibility statement preparation work I decided to describe some thoughts of mine on the best practices that can be useful for it.
Today is a big day for accessibility in the European Union and beyond. Still long to the ultimate goal but an important milestone.
Exactly one month until all public sector websites in the European Union must be accessible. Or to be more realistic – until they will have to let the users know where they still need work on accessibility. A positive direction nonetheless.
I have done some quick practical testing and research about cookie consents accessibility, usability and also some testing with search engines – on some websites in Europe, to see what are consequences of cookie consents for users, owners and search engines.
Public sector websites published before 23 September 2018 must be compliant by 23 September 2020.
Public sector in the European Union requires accessibility statement within Web Accessibility Directive, but that does not mean that you should not have such a statement even if you are not a part of public sector or even if you reside outside EU.