ℹ️ Why is it important?
Well, it ensures that digital products can be used not just by average users, but also by people with various disabilities. In short, it makes them accessible. And it’s all thanks to well-defined guidelines and principles that every designer should keep in mind!
When you imagine a person with a disability, what picture comes to your head? The image you probably have in mind represents just a small fraction of reality.
Remember that disabilities can also be temporary, e.g. hearing loss due to an ear infection.
The stereotypical image of a person with a disability is an old man with a white cane and glasses or a man in a wheelchair. If we think a bit more, we think of deaf people (like our grandpa with a hearing aid) or those without limbs. We often don’t realize that disability is so much more.
So, let’s get to the specifics. 👇
📊 First of all: data
What must you know in 2024 about accessibility? Why is it such an important topic? These statistics will help you understand:
→ 1.3 billion people worldwide live with some form of disability. We know this thanks to the WHO. 🌍 In Europe alone, it’s 87 million (data here).
→ 217 million people globally have visual impairments. This is also information from the WHO.
→ Almost 20% of the global population has hearing impairments. That’s 1.5 billion people! This is something we also know thanks to the WHO.
→ It’s estimated that 3% of the world’s population has intellectual disabilities. These are figures provided by the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. You can find criteria and other interesting information here.
→ According to a Pew Online study, just over 20% of people with disabilities in the USA never use the internet and technology. For many, the main reason is difficulty (or inability) to operate digital devices and products.
👉 A large amount of websites is not adapted for use by people with various disabilities.
→ According to Web Accessibility Statistics, 97% of websites are not accessible for people using assistive technologies, like screen readers. Only about 3% can be considered fully accessible and compliant with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).
→ The American ADA organization is active and sues companies that neglect accessibility in the digital world. See the report.
Understanding and addressing the most common web accessibility failures can significantly improve user experience for people with disabilities. Here are the key WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) failure types and their prevalence on home pages:
- Low contrast text: 81.0%
- Missing alternative text for images: 54.5%
- Missing form input labels: 48.6%
- Empty links: 44.6%
- Empty buttons: 28.2%
- Missing document language: 17.1%
These six categories account for 96.4% of all detected errors. Despite various efforts to improve web accessibility, these issues have remained the most common for the past five years. By focusing on and rectifying these specific types of errors, we can make significant strides in making the web more accessible for everyone.
→ 13.2% of pages had ambiguous link text, such as "click here", "more", "continue", etc. (a decrease from 17.3% of pages in 2023).
🤯 Quite a lot, right? However, the things are improving. According to these statistics:
→ 89.1% of accessibility professionals in UX agreed that high-quality websites will have a greater impact on accessibility than assistive technologies. This means that the number of accessibility advocates is increasing (up from 83.1% in 2018).→ The percentage of home pages with detectable WCAG2 errors is also decreasing. Today, it’s 95.9%, down from 96.8% (2023), 97.4% (2021) and 98.1% (2020).→ A lack of alternative texts. In this area, there’s noticeable improvement. Initially, this issue was noted on 68.0% (2019) of websites, and in subsequent years – 66% (2020) and 55.4% (2022-2024).
⚠️ What’s concerning, over the last several years the proportion of pages with fewer errors has increased while the number of pages with many errors has also increased — pages with fewer errors have gotten better while pages with many errors have gotten worse (source).
📝 How to ensure accessibility? Pro tips
As you can see from the numbers, accessibility should not be neglected. How can you achieve this? Here are some tips!
1️⃣ Here you’ll find the WCAG 2.1 requirements.
In short, the main points are:
→ 4 principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.
WCAG 2.1 encourages thinking about users. This means you need to consider solutions for people who:
👀 Want to see what’s in a photo but can’t (use alternative text or video transcripts).
🖱️ Can’t use a mouse, only a keyboard (#nomousechallenge and the Tab key say hello).
🤸♂️ Modify the size or colours on the page to see better. Here you’ll find information that well describes the scale of vision problems (in general, ensure proper contrast).
🔧 Change browser settings to improve readability (remember about white space between different parts of the page).
And… soon we’re about to introduce WCAG 3!
Important: use solutions that support accessibility. Start by choosing media players that allow for adding CC (closed caption), descriptions, or stopping, rewinding, and playing without a mouse. A good example is AblePlayer.
→ Learn how to create accessible videos (here).
You can check how your site performs with a screen reader.
2️⃣ Use the ADA Compliance Checklist.
It’s 11 points that allow you to assess accessibility in your product.
👇 What should you remember?
- Proper contrast,
- Alt texts,
- Transcripts or CC subtitles in videos,
- Intuitive and logical navigation,
- Well-designed forms (including error messages),
- Check if your site is usable when you, for example, zoom in with a magnifying glass,
- Navigation only with the keyboard,
- Ability to leave feedback.
3️⃣ See what Google offers on accessibility here. There’s quite a bit!
💡 AI vs accessibility
And finally, an interesting fact! You already know (or maybe not) that ChatGPT received a fresh update last year, making it a powerful tool. It is able to analyse not only text but also images, videos, and audio recordings. And it’s quite good at it!
What does this mean? For instance, it means ChatGPT can now identify a film from a short clip, providing the title, director, and year of release. Not just from a clip, but even from a single frame.
👉 And what does this have to do with accessibility? Well, ChatGPT is now supporting the Danish start-up Be My Eyes (here’s the customer story).
Until now, the app connected blind or visually impaired people with volunteers. The process was simple:
- A blind or visually impaired person sent a help request through the app (e.g., identifying the path ahead).
- The app notified a group of volunteers and matched the person with someone who spoke the same language and was in the same time zone.
- The first person to accept the call joined an audio call, receiving an image from the back camera of the phone of the person needing help.
- The audio call allowed for smooth communication and problem-solving.
And since then, they’ve been working on creating a virtual volunteer that can provide the same quality of communication as a human.
Current image interpretation programs are not advanced and, most importantly, cannot engage in dialogue. They won’t tell you that what’s in front of you is not just a ball but also a potential tripping hazard. They also won’t help create a recipe based on a photo of items in the fridge. Artificial intelligence has no limits.
The virtual volunteer 🤖 has already undergone beta testing and performed well enough that it will be available to app users in just a few weeks!
🗨️ What does Michael Buckley, CEO of Be My Eyes, think about it? 👇
“The impact of GTP-4 on global accessibility is huge. In the near future, the blind and visually impaired community will use these tools not only for many visual interpretation needs but also to achieve a greater degree of independence in their lives.”
As always, let us know what you think! Do you ensure accessibility in your projects? Maybe you have some good (and bad) examples?
And of course: should people be worried about AI when it already brings so much good?
