Advanced (Level AAA) Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Wuhcag
‘No timing’ requires no time limits on your website.
Users with visual, motor or cognitive impairments may need more time than others to understand and use your website. Any time controls or limits can make using your website difficult for these users.
Ensure there’s no time-limited content on your website.
The time limit is due to real-time events, like bidding in an auction or a livestream.
Keyboard (No Exception) requires that all functionality is accessible by keyboard with no exceptions.
Users with visual or motor impairment may navigate your website using only their keyboard or through assistive technology that relies on a keyboard-like interaction with your website.
This builds on 2.1.1 – Keyboard by removing the exceptions.
To test for this guideline, unplug your mouse and make sure you can fully use your website with only your keyboard – you might be surprised by what you can’t do.
Make sure no function on your website requires timed keystrokes (for example, ‘double tap on enter within two seconds’).
Don’t use ‘access keys’ (assigning a navigation link to a particular key) or page-specific key commands as they can conflict with assistive technology.
If you have something that, by its nature, must be mouse- controlled (like mouse testing software or a game) then do everything else you can to make your website accessible. Don’t panic because you can’t comply with this one guideline.
Don’t use images of text.
Users with visual or cognitive impairments may rely on changing font size, colour, alignment or spacing to enjoy your content.
Text allows for this kind of personalisation, but images almost always don’t.
You may already comply with this guideline, depending on how you addressed Images of Text.
Images are subject to guidelines on colour contrast – see Contrast (Minimum) and Contrast (Enhanced).
Offer users a range of presentation options for blocks of text.
Users with visual or cognitive impairments may need to customise the presentation of your website to understand and enjoy it.
Some users require a certain background and foreground colour to comfortably read text. Others find long lines or justified text difficult to follow and some find it hard to read text where the lines and paragraphs are close together.
As each user has different needs, providing a range of user-selectable options helps the most people.
The following five features are cumulative, as all must be in place to pass:
Add all visual presentation options to the header of your website, so they are some of the first things users interact with.
The BBC’s accessibility page has a good range of colour and spacing options to cover features 1 and 4.
Feature 4, concerning line and paragraph spacing, can be difficult to understand, so here’s a more detailed breakdown:
You probably fulfilled feature 5 when you completed 1.4.4 – Resize text.
Audio-only content is clear with no or minimal background noise.
Some users have difficulties with their hearing and won’t be able to hear your audio content as clearly as others, especially separating speech from background audio.
You can help by ensuring that your audio is clear. If you have pre-recorded audio-only content, keep background noise to a minimum so that the speaking voices can be heard.
Background noise is acceptable if:
Record your audio in a place you know will be quiet (a room with lots of soft furnishings is best if you haven’t got a studio).
Only use good quality audio (you should be doing this anyway if you care about your website).
The contrast ratio between text and background is at least 7:1.
All users benefit from a good contrast between the text on your website and the background colour.
Some users with visual impairments need a stronger contrast than others to understand your content, so using the right colours is essential.
While the minimum contrast for Level AA was 4.5:1, for Level AAA it’s 7:1. This higher standard of contrast helps a wider range of users read your content.
Make sure the contrast ratio between your text and background is at least 7:1.
Do this by:
You may have fulfilled this guideline when you completed 1.4.3 – Contrast (Minimum).
In CSS pixel terms, 14 points is 18.5 pixels and 18 points is 24 pixels.
Remember to ensure that all colours used conform. This includes links that change colour after being used once, and headings in menus and sidebars, as well as the main content.
Make sure that any embedded charts or images of charts have the minimum contrast between elements (for example, bars, axes and labels).
This guideline also applies to images of text (but you shouldn’t be using images of text, see 1.4.5 – Images of Text).
Provide alternatives for live audio.
Some users with hearing impairments may rely on alternatives to enjoy live audio-only content.
To add live captions to an audio broadcast, you will need professional software and a trained operator. This isn’t a job you can accurately perform without training.
If you can use live video instead, many live streaming platforms now offer auto captions.
Provide text alternatives for pre-recorded videos.
Users with visual and/or hearing impairments may not be able to perceive the information in a video from its soundtrack or captions.
Provide a full text transcript for your video and link to it from near the original content
If the video is itself an alternative, you don’t need to add a transcript.
You may have fulfilled this Guideline if you chose to meet 1.2.3 – Audio Description or Media Alternative (Pre-recorded) with a text transcript.
A text transcript is a document that includes all information present in the video, essentially a script for the video. This means including any visual cues (for example, ‘The fisherman holds up a large bass.’) as well as dialogue and non-speech sounds.
‘Extended Audio Description (Pre-recorded)’ requires you to provide extended audio descriptions for pre-recorded videos.
Users with visual impairments or cognitive limitations may rely on audio description to enjoy videos. Adding an audio description soundtrack to videos means these users get all information from the content.
For videos where there’s more information to convey than the natural pauses in the soundtrack allow you, those users need an extended audio description soundtrack.
This builds on audio description by effectively pausing the video to give the soundtrack enough time to pass on all the information from the video. This might mean narrating movements that are not audibly explained in the video, identifying speakers or explaining visual information.
You can provide this to users by letting them select an audio track within the video player or having links to both versions of the video.
Keep this guideline in mind when creating videos to reduce your workload.
Provide sign language translations for pre-recorded videos.
Users with hearing impairments can benefit from seeing a signed translation of your video soundtracks. In fact, those whose first language is a signed language may have limited reading ability, meaning captions can be difficult to follow.
Sign language is also faster to interpret than written captions and can convey emotion and tone much better.
Make an alternative version of your video with an interpreter either present in the main video or embedded as picture-in-picture and link to it from near the original content.
An obvious issue is the question of which language to use. Forms of signing are often exclusive to a particular country; even British and American are completely distinct, despite the similarities of the written language.
The best bet is to provide signing in the language of the country that you are targeting, or if you are multi-national, in the language of the country of the highest proportion of your visitors.
You’ll need to find and hire an interpreter for your videos.
