11 February 2022

How does Web Accessibility work?

Steven
️ Blog
10 min. reading time

As of September 23, all government and quasi-government entities must comply with WCAG 2.1. This ensures that your website is accessible to everyone, including people with low literacy, people with a visual impairment or motor impairment. But how does the Web Accessibility process work?

Government agencies should request an accessibility statement and have it renewed once a year. This ensures that Web Accessibility is placed on the agenda of all government agencies, including semi-government and independent administrative bodies.

To request the statement, go through the following steps. If your organization is not a government agency, you cannot request the declaration. However, you can work on an accessible website with the other steps.

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1. Create an overview

To request this statement, you have to go through a number of steps. You start by making an overview of the websites and apps in your organization.

Apps do not have to comply with the accessibility guidelines until June 23, 2021, but if you want to get your affairs in order, it is wise to take this already now. This is important, because as a large organization you may have more websites than you think.

2. Research accessibility

Research the Web Accessibility of your digital products. Look at the code, design and content for this. Part of the research can be carried out by means of tools, such as the tools on this list† However, 80% of the research remains manual work. You can have this done by an external service provider or under your own management.

Keep in mind that the research must meet precise criteria and for a complete picture you must include the entire website in the research. There are several independent research agencies that can do this research for you.

3. Prepare measures and planning

If you know what is already going well in the field of Web Accessibility and where there is still room for improvement, you can draw up measures. These measures relate to development, design and content, but can also involve creating administrative support. You convert these measures into an action plan for each website or app.

4. Request Accessibility Statement

As a government institution, you use the information from step 3 to request the accessibility statement. The statement states to what extent your website already meets the requirements and what measures you will take to increase accessibility. These measures must be presented including a planning.

You can request the accessibility statement via this website† When you have the statement, publish it on all your websites.

5. Improve Web Accessibility

The last and perhaps largest step is to implement the measures from step 3. This often involves collaboration between web editor, web designers en web developers required. The WCAG Guidelines are usually located at the intersection of these three areas.

That makes it wise to hire professionals for this as well. At Social Brothers, copywriters, designers and developers work together to ensure that the web accessibility of your website is guaranteed.

We continuously test. Think of testing during the construction of the renewed accessible website, testing during delivery, but also testing when building new components or writing new content.

Want to know more?

Read our other web accessibility blogs† For example, discover some measures you can take to make your website more accessible in this blog.

Do you need a digi-accessible website or do you want to improve the accessibility of your app? View our services page digiaccessibility† You can also use our free scan immediately gain insight into the digital accessibility of your website!

Take it contact If your website is ready for accessible design and development. As an ICT supplier, we can ensure that your website meets and continues to meet the new requirements.

Steven Founder[email protected]06 - 20413957
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