Let's imagine we are developing a product or service and our market research has shown that our target group consists of approximately 8 million people.
Unconsciously and without any apparent reason, we are now excluding 1.7 million people (more than 20%) from using the product. Does that make sense? No.
This is exactly what happens when digital products are developed without considering accessibility. A large part of our society, people with disabilities (approximately 1.7 million in Switzerland), are partially or completely excluded from participating in the service or using the product.
With the European Accessibility Act , the EU has harmonized accessibility requirements for digital products and services across EU countries. This directive applies to all products placed on the market after June 28, 2025. While the directive does not apply directly in Switzerland, standards and guidelines exist there as well (see below).
In addition to legal requirements, we also have a social responsibility to prevent and remove barriers. That's why we are addressing the issue of accessibility.
In this blog, we'll take a closer look at what accessibility means and what guidelines exist. In the next part, we'll give you 5 tips for improving accessibility.
What does accessibility mean for digital services?
In response to the question "Accessibility – what is it?", the Access for All Foundation the following answer:
Accessibility creates the conditions that enable people with disabilities to use the internet independently. It builds a bridge for everyone to innovative future technologies.
The types of barriers can be varied. For example, people with visual impairments rely on well-programmed websites to navigate them using a screen reader. And if I have trouble understanding texts, then I encounter barriers, for instance, with legal and formal texts.
In the analog world, we try to reduce or ideally eliminate barriers entirely through structural measures (wheelchair ramps, tactile guidance systems) and assistive devices (guide dogs, glasses, wheelchairs). This same principle must be applied to the digital world. It is crucial to adhere to standards and recommendations (imagine if every train station in Switzerland designed its tactile guidance system differently) and to plan these measures well in advance.
What standards and recommendations exist?
Every country has its own laws and regulations. The two most important standards for Switzerland are described below.
WCAG
The most important global guidelines for internet services are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These are already described in a very concrete and implementation-oriented manner.
The WCAG also define testable success criteria for each guideline on three levels:
The Foundation for Access for All recommends achieving level AA with additional optimizations in the PDF area and for specific target groups. Furthermore, the W3C explicitly recommends not prescribing level AAA as a universally applicable guideline "(...) since it is not possible to meet all the success criteria of level AAA for certain content.
In addition to WCAG, there are also the W3C's ARIA guidelines for Rich Internet Applications. However, not all assistive technologies, such as screen readers, support this standard, a fact confirmed both in blogs ( e.g., What are WCAG and WAI-ARIA? ) and by Lenthe Basant, the speaker at the Agile Testing Meetup in September 2022. It is therefore recommended to review and test the use of ARIA beforehand and weigh its advantages and disadvantages.
eCH-0059
The requirements for websites of public authorities and administrations are described in the eCH-0059 Accessibility Standards and the Guide to Accessible Digital Communication . In particular, eCH-0059 is strongly based on WCAG (Level AA). We can also apply and take these standards to heart in private companies.
The Foundation Access for All also provides a good overview of the legal situation in Switzerland .
One application for everyone
At the Agile Testing Meetup mentioned above, I asked whether creating an additional version of the service or product specifically designed for accessibility might be an option. Lenthe Basant advised against this suggestion for the following reasons:
- With two versions of the same application, it's only a matter of time before one version gets forgotten during the update.
- It's about inclusion, not segregation. Just as we manage (or want to manage) to build services for, for example, younger AND older people, or women AND people of diverse backgrounds AND men, we also want to build services for people with and without disabilities. For example, we don't install a separate ATM for blind people in a bank branch, but rather equip the ATMs with Braille and a headphone jack.
Of course, there is always the option of designing services specifically for people with disabilities, just as there are services specifically for young or older people. In this scenario, they would represent our primary persona (see Tip 2 in the next section). The extent to which these services should also include other user groups can be the subject of an interesting and informative discussion within the project team.
sequel follows
The second part contains 5 concrete tips for greater accessibility.
I welcome any feedback and discussion on this topic and wish you lots of fun and success on your journey of discovery towards inclusion and accessibility.
Your
Beni
