Why we should all be embarrassed by the WebAIM Million Report

TL;DR

Digital accessibility refers to designing and developing websites and digital tools in a way that makes them usable by people with disabilities. Unfortunately, the WebAIM Million report, which analyses the accessibility of the top one million websites, shows that progress towards web accessibility has been slow. This is a cause for embarrassment because accessibility is a basic human right and failure to ensure it on the web excludes millions of people from accessing information and services online. 

It’s just not good enough folks. We can make excuses that we don’t have control over the design or brand colours but we have to keep raising these issues until the noise is so loud people start listening. 

What is this article about? 

The WebAIM Million reports on the accessibility of the top one million websites ranked by Alexa. While there have been some small improvements in accessibility since the report began in 2019 there are still too many instances of basic issues especially in shopping and entertainment websites. 

What is Digital Accessibility? 

Digital accessibility refers to the ability of people with disabilities, including but not limited to visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurodiversity, to access and use digital content and technology.

In practice, digital accessibility involves designing websites, applications, and digital content in a way that makes them usable by as many people as possible, regardless of their abilities. This includes providing alternative formats for visual and audio content, ensuring that content is navigable by keyboard and using assistive technologies like screen readers and speech recognition software, while also making sure that colour contrast and font sizes are appropriate for people with visual impairments.

The goal of digital accessibility is to remove barriers that prevent people with disabilities from fully participating in and benefiting from the digital universe. If we make digital content and technology more accessible, we can ensure that everyone has equal access to information, services, and opportunities online.

What is the WebAIM Million Report? 

The WebAIM Million report conducts an accessibility evaluation of the home pages for the top one million websites. The evaluation is conducted using the WAVE stand-alone API and the results provide an overview of the current state of web accessibility. The report, which can be found using this link https://webaim.org/projects/million/ notes detected errors, page complexity and the most common errors and more within the report. 

While it has shown some positive trends over the years, progress towards web accessibility has been painfully slow and there is still so much more work to be done. 

Here are some key trends from the report since it began:

• In the first report, published in 2019, very few of the top one million websites had no detectable accessibility errors. This number increased in each subsequent report indicating some progress in web accessibility. But the rate it is progressing, with the current technology it could be nearly a hundred years before all sites are accessible. How sad is that? 

• Alternative text for images has shown consistent improvement over the years, however as there are valid reasons for not having alt-text e.g. it is just a decorative image, it is hard to tell from these figures how bad the situation really is. 

• Empty links are down 8% since the first report but there are still 50% of them that fail due to ambiguous text such as ‘click here’, ‘more’, or ‘continue’. 

• Colour contrast is a persistent issue, usually due to design or brand choices. The highest ranking issue in the report, the latest figure of 83.6% of home pages having at least one contrast issue is barely down from 2019 which was 85.3%. 

Overall, The report serves as a useful tool for tracking progress and identifying areas where more attention and resources are needed.

What does this all mean? 

While the WebAIM Million report has shown some improvements in web accessibility over the years, there is still a long way to go to ensure that the web is fully accessible to people with disabilities. The report highlights the urgent need for more attention and resources to be devoted to digital accessibility. We should all be embarrassed by the slow progress towards making the web more accessible and take action to ensure that everyone, regardless of ability, has equal access to online information and services.

A11y with Ady: April 2021

A11y with Ady 

April 2021

Introduction: 

I hereby dub the first Tuesday of the month as the new “Accessibility Tuesday” when I will publish this accessibility newsletter, so; 

Welcome to A11y with Ady. I hope you enjoy it and find something useful and I’m happy to hear any feedback or thoughts or anything you would like to hear more about from the world of accessibility. 

Information will be shared in these info groups;

• General - info that might interest everyone. This could be on inclusion, readability etc. 

• Disability - info on how specific disabilities might affect the use of software 

• Technical - info relating to more technical implementations, automation and coding 

• Compliance - news on WCAG Guidelines, regulation, legal actions etc.

So, here we go!

GeneraL: 

The benefits of asking for a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) also known as a conformance report are nicely outlined in this article. We have a known problem with HelpScout, so maybe we should be asking for one, and chasing for time scales for outstanding issues? 

https://sarahhortondesign.com/2021/02/14/not-it-a-game-of-accessibility-hide-and-seek-with-technology-vendors/ 

Compliance: 

While you don’t really have to be sneaky to look at the first public draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 3.0 this article summarises the changes you can expect really well. There are a number of significant language changes in the new version we will all have to get used to. A focus on the outcomes is also a significant change of tact along with new areas to look at like clear language. These all make for an interesting future for accessibility conformance. 

https://www.digitala11y.com/a-sneak-peek-into-wcag-3-0-first-public-draft/ 

Technical: 

This is not my strongest area of expertise but it comes recommended and from what I’ve read there may be useful things within that we can use. 

Welcome to Tenon-UI

These are the documentation pages of Tenon-UI: Tenon’s accessible React components library. Why another component library?

Tenon-UI strives to become a go-to library for React developers who want to build inclusive and accessible sites that can be used by as many people as possible. If you do not yet know why this is a very good idea or how this relates to React in general, please visit the React Accessibility Docs.

https://www.tenon-ui.info/ 

Disability:

Jamie Knight writes about how their ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) affects their sleeping and the various things they do to adapt their environment to help them. 

https://spacedoutandsmiling.com/blog/2021-02-23-sleeping 

I found this visual from Seth Perler.com on his iceberg theory a really interesting insight into neurodiverse conditions as this could also apply to some versions of autism and PTS / PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). For information, PTS normally resolves within a month or so, PTSD can last longer or for life.  Note: there are a few other iceberg type theories out there.

Description: The iceberg shows what people usually notice above the surface, late to work, no motivation, low grades etc. But below the surface there could be one or many things going on.

That’s it for this month. Don’t forget to let me know what you liked, didn’t and any suggestions for improvements or questions.
Have a great Accessibility Tuesday, kind regards, A11y_Ady

Being an Accessibility Advocate - and why you should too

Following a post on LinkedIn about side hustles, where, in the comments, I mentioned working on an accessibility workshop. I was asked ‘What’s an accessibility advocate?’ I say it often and had an internal understanding but had never properly thought about defining it for myself or to anyone.

This was the beginning of my reply.

My definition is someone who promotes, talks about and actively brings accessibility into conversations.

That felt about right but I see lots of similarities with other disciplines and their advocates that I wanted to provide some context. A distraction from preparing to deliver my very first accessibility workshop at Sky in Leeds, but a worthwhile one I think.

So I continued;

A bit like security is seen as a pure specialism and scary by some, many see accessibility the same way. For both there is so much we can do.

• Ask if they have been considered early on in the process.

• What strategies are we using?

• Include basic tests in our exploration

Considered at the design stage instead of hard to add items they become design choices and therefore much cheaper. Considered after something is built, they are much more costly!

I was fairly comfortable with my answer now but I couldn’t quite drop the thought. I kept thinking about my immediate reply and was it really deep enough? Did I understand what I wanted to achieve by doing this as well as I assumed I did? Should I, as any good tester would, question my assumptions for a clearer understanding? I came to the conclusion, after some thought, that yes, yes I should question myself. It didn’t take long to identify that it is those things, but there’s more to it.

I make it very clear at the beginning of conversations, talks and even recently in a workshop given at Sky in Leeds and a meetup in Nottingham, that I am in no way an accessibility expert. But that doesn’t mean I can’t teach others what I know, spread the message and amplify others voices in the space. It never ceases to amaze me of the knowledge we take for granted as common place that isn’t widely known. Simple things like adding Alternate Text (Alt-text) to images accessed digitally seem obvious to allow people who need to use screen readers to navigate. But they only become obvious once you consider those users.

Over the last few years I’ve looked at different ways to spread the message.

• Invented a visual heuristic (https://www.thebigtesttheory.com/blog/2019/5/13/my-first-experiences-with-accessibility-testing).

• Shared information.

• Been a co-host of an accessibility power hour (https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/power-hour-accessibility-testing/26064) on the Ministry of Testing Club.

• Created a quiz I believe is unique (and so far very well received) and that I’m still improving. It is deliberately very visual, as that is the target audience, but I want to make sure non-visual people can also take part by providing a fully accessible version online. Although I suspect they know most if not all of the answers already!

The next stage is developing a longer workshop to help people to conduct a basic accessibility audit of their own sites and apps. Learning this will allow those attending to have those conversations up front and (hopefully) influence the design. Essentially, I’m hoping to inspire others to become accessibility advocates themselves. I have an hour and a half workshop already and am close to submitting a half day workshop to conferences. So watch out for it coming to a conference near you soon. I’m also considering offering this to companies in house covering my time and expenses e.g. less about making a profit and more around spreading the message.

The next logical question is why? What makes someone want to be an accessibility advocate? Personal experience? Or just that it’s the right thing to do. While it is the right thing to do the best explanation I can give comes from someone else.

Four-time U.S. Paralympic medallist Tucker Dupree used to do a lot of public speaking during his competitive swimming days. His talks would often challenge the audience to think differently about people with disabilities.

I’d always open my speech with, ‘As a person with a disability, I belong to one of the largest minorities in the world, and on top of that, it’s a minority that anyone in this room can become a part of at any point in their life. You can acquire a physical disability at any point in your life, and disability comes in every culture and in every colour…’

One thing I hold to be true in everything I’ve learned is that the general perception that Accessibility = Disability is not quite correct. In the majority of cases, things that affect people with disabilities can equally affect people without. While it is important of the people with, Accessibility is more about Inclusion so becomes wider than just conformance to the guidelines.

So overall while I’m happy with my contribution although I know it is only a drop in the ocean and it needs more to convince those with the power that this is something we have to do. No easy task but I feel, a worthwhile pursuit.

Near the end of writing this blog post, WebAIM published their re-analysis of the top one million web home pages which can be found at this locations, https://webaim.org/projects/million/update

They categorise errors as;

Errors are accessibility issues that are automatically detectable via WAVE, have notable end user impact, and are likely WCAG 2 conformance failures.

The other reason everyone should be accessibility advocates is what they found. A 98% failure rate. And that’s only based on automatically detectable errors! We can and should do better, but only if we look for and call out these issues.