Best Practices for Accessibility

The creation of the internet introduced a new era by creating a computing environment that works for everyone. Instead of requiring a specific computer platform, internet applications can be accessed by anyone, from anywhere, in any language. The Internet-based environment removed most of the old technical and physical barriers to communication and interaction.

When developers create badly designed web-based applications, however, they may re-introduce some of those old barriers to interaction for some users. Accessibility standards were created to ensure that the Web's promise of accessibility for all remained true.

Why Accessibility is Important

As the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) notes, web accessibility refers to technologies that enable people with disabilities to use web-based applications. These disabilities may include:

• auditory
• cognitive
• neurological
• physical
• speech
• visual

Beyond that, however, web accessibility also benefits people without disabilities:

• The proliferation of mobile devices, which many people now use instead of traditional desktop or laptop devices, means that many people now view the web on much smaller screens, without traditional input devices like the keyboard or mouse.
• As people age, they may start having some level of natural physical impairment. The increasing number of older people means more and more people will require increased accessibility efforts on the part of business, educational, and government institutions to meet the needs of this population.
• Sometimes, people just get injured, and it may temporarily be hard to use a computer until they are healed, for instance, while wearing a cast on one's hand.
• People are often outdoors in bright sun, or in public where playing audio would bother others. While temporary, such situations can be inconvenient.
• People may be in a location with limited internet connectivity, and a more accessible experience can minimize the use of limited Internet bandwidth.

Web accessibility, therefore, benefits everyone, not just the disabled. This is especially true as the Internet

• Has become the nexus for nearly all aspects of information use in daily life, whether it's in education, commerce, government, or social interaction, and
• Has replaced most of the accessibility barriers to print, audio, and video.

The W3C also makes a good business case for using accessible design.

While it is often difficult to measure the return on investment for many information technology initiatives, there have been some interesting research findings in the area of accessibility implementation. For instance, a research study of Fortune 100 companies indicates that high-performing organizations commonly include disability inclusion as part of their overall strategy.

Implementing accessibility provides many benefits, such as reducing legal risks, improving the customer experience, and increasing worker productivity. Integrating accessibility also removes barriers to innovation, and provides varied and flexible ways for users to interact with websites and applications. Design of user interaction considers experiences other than screens when accessibility is a consideration. The result is interaction that is more human-centered, natural, and contextual. Thus, accessibility is closely related to general usability – both aim to define and deliver a more user-friendly experience.

A clear commitment to accessibility can demonstrate that a business has a genuine commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility. The benefits of this commitment include enhanced brand image and reputation, and improved workforce diversity and many other benefits. For instance, employing people with disabilities is an essential aspect of creating a diverse workforce. To be successful, the technology that employees use, including websites and applications, must be accessible.

Additionally, a Forrester Research study concluded that accessibility could contribute to cost savings when it is integrated into existing and ongoing development cycles. Technology updates and redesigns that include accessibility along with other best practices have demonstrated reduced costs for maintenance and service. Moreover, as accessibility features are included, overall customer satisfaction improves.

It's Not Just a Good Idea, It's the Law

When using Process Director, you should make end user accessibility a priority. Not only is it a nice thing to do in general, but most governments mandate some form of accessibility be implemented so that disabled persons can access web-based content more easily. In the US, this mandate comes from Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act, while, more recently, Canada passed the Accessible Canada Act, which, along with various provincial accessibility laws, now mandates accessibility for all federal public institutions, Crown Corporations, and all federally regulated organizations. Fortunately, most accessibility laws specify conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) promulgated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Over time, the legal risk of ignoring accessibility has increased with the adoption of more specific laws and government policies.

In the United States, for example, the number of legal actions continues to rise, and courts increasingly decide in favor of equal access, often citing the Americans with Disabilities Act. Between government oversight and regulation on the one hand, and increased legal action on the other, the legal landscape is rapidly changing in favor of equal access.

Similarly, in Canada, litigation for accessibility is commonly pursued under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Employment Equity Act, and, most recently, the Accessible Canada Act. Meanwhile, several provinces, such as Ontario, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia, have fairly extensive provincial laws that mandate accessibility standards.

With legal risks increasing, smart organizations should create and implement accessibility policies and programs to mitigate legal risk to protect both their assets and their reputations.

Public use of the web is more than 25 years old. It is no longer a novelty, but an integrated and critical tool of modern life. Smart organizations integrate accessible design into their processes, because they understand the need for equal access by all people. The legal risks of ignoring accessibility are significant, while the benefits of implementing accessibility have been demonstrated by leading organizations. By developing a long-term commitment to accessibility your organization is likely to thrive in unexpected and self-sustaining ways.

Accessibility in Process Director

In this section of the documentation, we'll l examine the WCAG accessibility standards, and discuss some guidance for implementing these standards within Process Director. Process Director provides accessibility tools for the creation of objects that will be accessed by end users—which primarily means Forms—and not for the administrative functions of the product itself. In order to organize these various practices, we will take a look at each of the WCAG standards, and describe the built in accessibility features of Process Director, along with some best practices for implementing each standard.

More detailed information about Process Director's compliance with accessibility standards is provided by the BP Logix Process Director Accessibility Conformance Report (VPAT© Version 2.3) as a PDF download.

Many accessibility features are built in to the product already, and govern specific control behaviors. These control behaviors can be reviewed in this downloadable PDF document.

Checking for Accessibility #

There are a number of tools you can use to check for accessibility while designing your Process Director forms, but one of the easiest methods for running accessibility checks is to use a browser extension (or "add-on" for Microsoft browsers). Browser extensions are installed into the web browser, and run inside the browser without needing any other external software, so they are fairly easy to use.

Keep a couple of things in mind:

• We can't specifically recommend any third-party tool, or browser extension, only inform you about some of the available options.
• None of these browser extensions are perfect, and all of them have their own strengths and weaknesses.
• You should choose the accessibility checking tool that best meets your needs, after an appropriate evaluation.

With the above in mind, here are some browser extensions that are used fairly widely.

Lighthouse: This isn't actually an extension, but one of the Developer Tools that are already built into Chrome and Chrome-based browsers like Brave. It can perform a variety of checks, one of which is an accessibility check. In Chrome-based browsers, the Developer Tools can be accessed by pressing the [F12] key. Lighthouse has its own tab in the Developer Tools UI.

WAVE Accessibility Extension: Available for both Chrome and Firefox. This is one of the oldest and most widely-used browser extensions.

axe - Web Accessibility Testing: Available for Chrome, Firefox and Edge.

Accessibility Insights for Web: Available for both Chrome and Edge.

a11yTools - Web Accessibility: Available for Safari. Safari has a more limited choice of extensions, unfortunately.

IBM Equal Access Accessibility Checker: Available for Chrome and Firefox.

As mentioned previously, each of these tools have pros and cons to their use, and some experts recommend using more than one tool to check for accessibility issues.

Accessibility Principles

Please continue to see the Accessibility Principles that apply to no code/low code application development with Process Director.