Web accessibility standards

All web delivery platforms must adhere to the WCAG 2.1 AA standard as a minimum to comply with the 2018 Digital Accessibility legislation. This includes an accessibility statement, which also has its own requirements.

It's not always possible to be compliant with the standards for a range of reasons but in those cases the accessibility statement must declare this and the reason for non compliance.

Clear signposting to alternatives must also be included.

There are four main principles in the WCAG standard:

  1. Perceivable: Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
    Examples: alt text for images, contrast ratios, audio descriptions and captioning for video
  2. Operable: User interface components and navigation must be operable.
    Examples: Keyboard accessible, functionality beyond the keyboard
  3. Understandable: Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable. Examples: Language, no jargon or abbreviations, input assistance in the form of error identification, labels or instructions when content requires input.
  4. Robust: Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.
    Examples: Structured documents, parsing (complete tags, names, roles and values)

See also

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