exploring the future of accessibility
This year marks the 25th birthday of WCAG 1.0 (the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). Published on May 5th 1999, WCAG 1.0 is 16 years junior of the Internet. This age gap begs the question, will the Internet and accessibility ever be on equal footing?
Looking to the future, we are seeing the rise of new technologies such as VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality), and most notably AI (Artificial Intelligence). It’s clear that these rapidly developing technologies will be a benefit to the world of accessibility. However, it is important that they should not be solely relied upon, and human input is still needed.
web accessibility today
For the past 5 years, WebAim have conducted an accessibility evaluation of the home pages for the top 1,000,000 websites. Here are some standout points from their latest data set (February 2023):
- Across 1,000,000 homepages, 49,991,225 distinct accessibility errors were detected-an average of 50.0 errors per page.
- 4.8% of all home page elements had a detected accessibility error. Users with disabilities would expect to encounter errors on 1 in every 21 home page elements with which they engage.
- 96.3% of homepages had detected WCAG 2 failures.
The most common WCAG failures were:
- Low contrast text: 83.6%
- Missing alt text for images: 58.2%
- Empty links: 50.1%
- Missing form input labels: 45.9%
- Empty buttons: 27.5%
- Missing document language: 18.6%
(% of homepages out of 1,000,000 sample size)
The full report can be found here on WebAIM’s website.
new technology and the effect on accessibility
With new technology developing at an astonishing rate, it’s crucial to maintain systems and webpages that are accessible to all. In October 2023, the W3C team fully released the WCAG 2.2 standard, and in July 2023, they published the working draft for WCAG 3.0.
WCAG 3.0 aims to include further guidance on AI and machine learning to improve accessibility which will create a more personalised and dynamic user experience. Whilst it will not be a completed W3C standard for a few more years, WCAG 3.0 shows us that the future of accessibility guidelines is ensuring we stay updated with emerging technologies.
Let’s look at some of these technologies:
1) Voice Recognition
AI assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana have revolutionised voice recognition technology for a completely hands-off approach. These speech recognition technologies are highly beneficial for individuals with mobility issues or visual impairments. However, these are not completely inclusive due to being unable to recognise speech patterns of those with cognitive impairments or strong accents.
2) Haptic Feedback
Haptic feedback replicates the sense of touch through vibrations, forces, or motion feedback. Responsive technology is important to those with visual or hearing impairments. It makes device navigation more intuitive and inclusive. Resulting in an enhanced user experience.
3) Eye Tracking
Eye tracking is a great accessibility tool for those with mobility-limiting diseases. It allows users to control the cursor and interact with devices using their eyes instead of a computer mouse. Previously, motion trackers were also used, but are less popular due to the increased accuracy and lower cost in eye tracking.
4) AI Content Generation
Probably the most relevant emerging technology at the moment is AI. Previously more of a gimmick, you can now use AI to generate alt text for images, write closed captions and subtitles, and power text-to-speech software. These can be used by people with visual impairments, hearing impairments, and can also be used by translators to make content more accessible to people who speak different languages.
the future
Whilst technology is helping to revolutionise accessibility tools, there is also the need for a more intentional approach to digital accessibility. WebAim’s findings from February 2023 are proving that accessibility on websites is still vastly overlooked and more research needs to be done as to the implementation of accessible features.
If you want help improving your website accessibility, or are curious to know more, the team here at Fairness can help. Contact us today.
Fairness: Making the digital world accessible to everyone