How to prepare your organization for digital accessibility?

Digital accessibility has become a challenge for all organizations that offer online services. The European Accessibility Directive (EAA - EU:2019/882 ) requires that certain products and services be accessible by June 28 , 2025. It applies to the private sector, covering areas such as e-commerce, banking services, transport platforms, telecommunications, and self-service kiosks.

This directive, aimed at ensuring the inclusion of all users, represents a key deadline for businesses. Preparing for it now not only helps you meet legal requirements, but also improves the experience of all your users .

Integrating accessibility into your digital projects from the outset is essential to meeting the needs of all your users, including those with disabilities. Here are the key steps to prepare and the pitfalls to avoid in the process.

Steps to successful accessibility

1. Carry out an inventory

Before you begin, it's essential to conduct an accessibility audit of your digital tools (websites, mobile apps, etc.) with accessibility experts. This audit allows you to:

• Assess your current level of compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
• Identify pain points , such as complex forms or incompatibilities with screen readers.

The audit is a crucial step in defining and prioritizing the work to be undertaken.

2. Strengthen your team's skills

If your organization lacks maturity in the area of accessibility, it's best to seek support, particularly through training, which will help raise awareness and develop the skills of your entire team. Understanding the issues and learning by doing is an important step before implementing accessibility.

3. Define a roadmap and communicate with users

Once the initial audit has been completed, you will need to structure your action plan and define a 3-year roadmap, known as the "multi-year accessibility plan." This plan aims to present all the measures put in place to support the accessibility of your sites and applications.

Plan to communicate clearly with your users by publishing an accessibility charter on your site. This charter provides information on which elements are compliant and which are not.

4. Validate with end users

Finally, to verify the effectiveness of the measures implemented, collaborate with associations like Anysurfer. They will allow you to connect with end users with disabilities who will be able to evaluate the relevance of the solutions adopted and make adjustments if necessary.

5. Perform a final audit

Once the accessibility work is complete, a final audit is essential. This allows you to verify the effective compliance of the changes made. It also ensures that your platform is fully operational for all users.

6. Establish a mediation contact system

To ensure functional accessibility and meet user needs, establishing a contact system between the organization and users allows you to report accessibility issues not anticipated during testing and adjust your platform to continuously improve the user experience. Creating this mediation space will allow you to understand the reality on the ground.

What pitfalls should be avoided in this transition?

Misunderstanding of accessibility  

A common pitfall is reducing accessibility to minimal solutions that don't meet user needs. To avoid this, you need to understand accessibility as a whole, integrate WCAG guidelines, and aim for a truly inclusive experience.

This involves training and raising awareness among teams to make accessibility a key element of design, from the start.

Taking accessibility as a constraint

Another common pitfall is viewing accessibility as just another constraint or obstacle to overcome, rather than as an enriching design tool. Accessibility should be seen as a lever to improve the user experience, not as a restriction.

By integrating accessibility practices from the outset, design becomes more inclusive and better suited to a wide variety of user profiles. This allows for a renewed experience for everyone, whether they have visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive disabilities. Accessibility isn't a barrier to innovation; it's an opportunity to expand the audience and make the digital experience accessible to all.

Do not use standard elements

Web development standards, defined by organizations like the W3C, are designed to be compatible with assistive technologies and facilitate the user experience for people with disabilities. Not using them is a major mistake, as it results in additional work and risks (poor results and incompatibility in the event of updates).

Frameworks like Bootstrap are now essential references in terms of accessibility, because they integrate standardized elements that have proven themselves, such as buttons, carousels, dropdowns, modals, and many others, which are already optimized to be accessible.

By capitalizing on proven standards, you guarantee lasting accessibility and save time.

Not considering accessibility from the start of a project

Another major pitfall is viewing accessibility as a step to be added last. When accessibility is considered from the start, it becomes an integral part of design and development.

This has several advantages:

• Save time,
• Avoid unexpected costs by having to go back and redesign design or code elements that do not meet accessibility standards,
• Building solid foundations in accessibility.

Conclusions

Digital accessibility is not only a legal obligation, but also an opportunity to expand your audience and improve the user experience for everyone. At Smile, we offer comprehensive support, from design and development to audits and training, to help you successfully achieve this goal.

Ready to make your services accessible to everyone?

Contact us to effectively prepare your organization for digital accessibility.