Digital Products Require Accessibility
Many organizations struggle to comply with accessibility regulations. Most don’t know where to start and what to do to make sure their digital content is in line with the necessary standards.
The journey towards an accessible website begins with an initial assessment. From there, you will have a report detailing what needs to change for your product or service to be accessible. But if you don’t have the right resources, implementing these changes can be difficult. That’s where we come in.
We specialize in helping organizations remediate their products so that they are compliant with accessibility standards. Our team of accessibility experts is adept at identifying accessibility issues and providing solutions that ensure your existing website and other digital assets are fully accessible.
Software
Organizations aiming to secure government contracts for their software applications or services must ensure their products are compliant with Section 508. Failing to meet these standards can lead to missed contract opportunities, legal consequences, and harm to the organization’s reputation.
Websites
Constantly ensuring that your website continues to meet the ever-increasing requirements for accessible design is an essential part of website remediation. It’s important to audit your site on a regular basis in order to guarantee its ongoing accessibility and stay ahead of changing standards.
Website Remediation
To ensure your website is readily accessible, crafting a remediation plan should be the first step. This strategy will provide an assessment of accessibility issues on the current website, as well as prioritize any tasks that require attention with estimated deadlines for completion.
Some examples of accessibility remediation for websites include:
- Making text readable by increasing font size and contrast;
- Using headings and subheadings to organize information
- Including clear and concise navigational labels.
- Adding alternative text for images
- Adding captions and subtitles to videos;
- Providing an audio description of images and other visual content
Documents
There are a variety of types of business documents that may need document remediation for accessibility, including but not limited to:
- HTML web pages
- PDF’s
- Word documents,
- PowerPoints,
- Excel Spreadsheets
- Training materials
- Letters
- Memos
- Reports
Document Remediation
Remediating documents for ADA and Section 508 can be time-consuming. It is important to consult with an expert in document accessibility when beginning either process, as they will be able to help you identify all of the areas in which your document needs improvement and guide you through the remediation process.
PDF Remediation
For individuals with disabilities, PDF UA accessibility remediation shapes the way that they interact with digital documents. This can include rectifying errors in the file itself, appending alternative text descriptions to images and including navigation controls for improved user experience.
How to remediate PDFs and make them accessible
Testing your PDFs for accessibility is the first step in making your PDFs more accessible. One way to do this is to use a PDF accessibility checker to find and fix errors. The Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Checker can be used to check PDFs for accessibility issues and to create remediation reports.
Another example is the use of the PDF Accessibility Toolkit, which can be used to fix common accessibility problems in PDFs.
The best option, if possible, is to create accessible PDFs from scratch.
Related: Read our post on the Importance of PDF Accessibility
What is accessibility remediation?
Accessibility remediation is an important process that makes digital content is fair and accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. It involves optimizing the code, design, or features of a website or application so every user can comfortably use it without any difficulty, especially with assistive technologies.
Although this might seem complicated, there are some basics everyone should know. First, it’s important to understand the laws that require digital accessibility.
ADA
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) isn’t just about physical spaces; it’s a commitment to digital accessibility too. With the ADA Standards for Accessible Design, ensuring websites and apps are accessible is required by law. As we navigate the online world, TestPros stands as your guide. We audit, identify, adapt, and elevate, ensuring your platforms aren’t just functional but inclusive.
Section 508
Section 508 of The Rehabilitation Act is a law that requires Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. The law includes employees, contractors, and members of the public who seek information or services from a Federal agency, as well as state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and commercial businesses that produce or procure electronic or information technology.
According to this act, all information and communication technology (ICT) must meet certain accessibility standards. For Section 508 compliance, your ICT should meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). WCAG 2.0 Level AA is the base standard to reach.
Remediation for Section 508
To successfully remediate ICT for section 508, the first step is to identify which components need to be updated. To do so, it’s crucial that you perform an accessibility audit and analyze the results. Once all of these areas have been identified, begin making any necessary changes by either updating software or hardware settings or modifying how they are used. It’ll then be essential to test them afterwards in order to guarantee their effectiveness.
One example of this process is to use a screen reader, which will read the content on the screen aloud to the user. Another way is to use a high contrast color scheme, which will make it easier for users with low vision to see the content on the screen. In addition, you can also test your ICT for accessibility by only using a keyboard instead of a mouse.
To ensure compliance and all requirements are met, it’s recommended to reach out to an experienced accessibility company or consultant, such as TestPros.
WCAG
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are globally recognized standards for ensuring website accessibility. WCAG 2.1 is the latest version, and it provides a detailed checklist of criteria that websites and digital content should meet to ensure they are fully accessible. This includes everything from text alternatives for non-text content to ensuring that all functionality is available from a keyboard. ADA and Section 508 typically require adherence to the latest version of WCAG.
Need Accessibility Remediation?
Become Fully Accessible & Compliant
TestPros' Accessibility Remediation Services
TestPros has specialists that can assist your company with every area of your product. From accessible design, to code remediation and generation; TestPros can handle it all.
We will work closely with you to ensure that our teams both remediate your issues to the standards required by law and beyond, and enhance your product by streamlining and creating inclusive design and code.
- Design – Our design experts have years of experience developing inclusive designs for a multitude of clients. We can work with your in-house designers to create new color schemes, UI design, and UX scenarios that will help your team move forward in terms of accessibility
- Front End Code – TestPros has a wealth of knowledge remediating front end code. We can handle stock HMTL, CSS, and JavaScript, but also frameworks such as React, Angular, Ruby on Rails, Vue.js and many more.
- Software – Desktop application / software accessibility remediation can be challenging even for experienced developers. We can assist your team with making remediations for software using several technologies and programming languages.
- Mobile Applications – Our iOS and Android accessibility remediation includes services for the various frameworks, programming languages, and IDEs commonly used within mobile application development.
Technologies We're Experienced With
Our team has decades of experience with a several technologies, software, and programming languages. Our staff has years of experience with:
- HTML 5
- CSS3
- JavaScript
- React
- React Native
- Angular
- Ruby on Rails
- Vue.js
- Swift
- Cocoa / UIKit
- Objective C / C# / C++ / .NET
- Java / Maven
- Microservices
- XCode / iOS Simulator
- JIRA
- Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment Pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, Travis CI, and Circle CI)
- And more…
TestPros is your Accessibility Remediation Solution
As you can see, accessibility remediation can be quite the challenge. Using an independent third-party to augment your internal resources is invaluable for your organization to meet all compliance requirements.
TestPros offers full life-cycle services for accessibility compliance, to include but not limited to: initial accessibility audits, accessibility regression testing, integration of automated testing solutions in CI/CD pipelines, remediation of non-compliant ICT, training, and more.
To learn more about our accessibility remediation services, contact us today.
