Accessible websites
Accessible websites
Accessible Internet - what is it?
"The term accessibility was originally used in the construction industry and refers to buildings that are accessible without obstacles, for example for wheelchair users" (source: Wikipedia).
There can also be obstacles on the internet for people with physical disabilities that make it difficult or even impossible to use. Possible restrictions:
- Vision: Blindness, but also severe visual impairment including colour blindness, requires other ways of reading a website, e.g. using a Braille display or a screen reader.
- Hearing: Deafness or hearing loss impairs the perception of acoustic media (audio/video).
- Motor skills: Due to spasticity or other motor disorders, the user cannot navigate with the mouse, but only with the keyboard.
- Cognitive abilities: Limitations such as learning disabilities, poor concentration, etc. mean that affected persons are unable to understand complex texts.
The challenge is therefore to ensure that the information on our websites is also accessible to people with such impairments. To achieve this, certain things need to be taken into account when providing content.
One initial question for editors could be:
What information do I want to provide and how does it need to be structured so that people who are blind or deaf, for example, can also perceive it?
Video of the training course on accessible websites
In an online training course on the topic of accessible websites, it was shown what needs to be taken into account when providing information on websites so that the content remains accessible for people with disabilities. In addition to a brief general overview, aspects relating to the use of images, tables and text elements are considered. You can watch the video here.
Note: The video is only accessible to members of the university.
Legal background
EU Directive 2016/2102 requires public sector websites to be accessible. The provisions of the EU Directive or the current version of the Barrier-free Information Technology Ordinance (BITV) in the respective Federal State must be implemented from 23 September 2020 for websites that already existed before 23 September 2018.
Who is responsible?
The central administrator of the website is responsible for the general usability of the website. This concerns the framework layout and the overall structure of the web pages as well as the automatic behaviour of certain content elements that can be generated in the content management system. One feature of this area of responsibility is the keyboard operability of the web pages. There must be a central accessibility statement on the status of accessibility.
The editors themselves are responsible for all content provided by them. In addition to the general text structure (e.g. sensible use of headings), this applies to all media (images, audio/video and other downloadable documents).