Accessibility standards: a look in the kitchen

Accessibility standards: a look in the kitchen HIDDE DE VRIES - UCC CAFE, ONLINE - MARCH 2025

“The power of the web i T –

Accessibility: ensure that services work for people with disabilities

Accessibility: ensure that services work for people with disabilities – auditory – physical – visual – cognitive – speech

15-20% of your users (80 million in the EU) Source: eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/accessibility-of-products-and-services.html

Disability is a spectrum

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2007 signed on behalf of the European Community 2011 entered into force in the European Union eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec/2010/48(1)

“discrimination against any person on the basis of disability is a v i – UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities , Annex I, h.

UNCRPD Web Accessibility Directive European Accessibility Act Directive (EU) 2016/2102 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2016 on the accessibility of the websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies Directive (EU) 2019/882 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the accessibility requirements for products and services

How to measure if a service is actually accessible?

i Access

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (W3C) Robust Operable Understandable Perceivable

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (W3C) weekly telecon (<= 2hrs) async discussions on GitHub, mailing lists F2F meetings

100 active contributors

i Access

EN 301 549 (E T

“Harmonised standard” Originally for procurement, now more widely used

EN 301 549 (E T

requested by European Union voluntary, but useful, because “presumption of conformance”

1999 EN, 2015 2008 EN, 2018 2018 EN, 2019 2023 EN, 2021 … EN, … i 4 v v v v WWWWW Standards can take a wh

i Standards can take a wh

Consensus “To promote consensus, … Cha i – W3C process

Different levels of review at each step (W3C) Work Cand Recommendat “standard” i i i (simplified)

Work Re group, public, Cand Recommendat i i i (simplified) w W Different levels of review at each step (W3C)

Horizontal review (W3C) Accessibility Architecture Internationalization Privacy Security

Standards can take a wh Consensus based process Very extensive review i Dependencies

How we use standards

a government website’s WCAG report

Het nieuwe online publiceren 03

Accessibility standards provide fair measurement that regulation needs Standards take time due to consensus decision making and extensive review i T In conclus