This does not just apply to people with disabilities - all users have different needs at different times and in different circumstances.

Why do we need this?

As our customers become more and more dependent on our digital services it is of increasing importance to also consider people with disabilities in the design process. If we don’t take into account people with certain needs we risk excluding a large part of our customers.

About 20 per cent of our population has some form of disability, which makes it more than just a marginalized group, but rather a substantial part of our customers.

It's the right thing to do!

We are continually striving for having applications and services available for anyone in need of them, regardless of their individual need and capability; everybody benefits from design that is made with good accessibility in mind.

It also makes sense to not exclude about 20% of the population.

The law

European Accessibility Act will soon be the law in the memberstates of the EU. Once it becomes the law, failure to comply can lead to penalties. 

So what guidelines should we follow? 

When designing digital services we shall follow well-established guidelines for accessibility, such as W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.1 (WCAG 2.1). These consists of four basic principles:

• Information must be perceivable by everyone;
• The application controls must be operable by everyone;
• The content, including instructions and error messaging, must be understandable; and
• The web page must be robust, which is defined as compatible with a wide variety of browsers and assistive technologies.

Use these checklists

These checklists come from Webbriktlinjer.se and can help you both understand and evaluate accessibility in your project . We have selected a few that should be especially interesting to you (only in Swedish):

• Appar & responsiv webb
• Begripligt språk
• Design
• Dokument & pdf
• Formulär & felhantering
• Länkar & adressering
• Teknik & kod
• WCAG – standard för tillgänglighet

The complete list of checklists: https://webbriktlinjer.se/checklistor/

Ten simple commandments

If you don't take anything else from these pages, these points are a SUMMARY of what you should remember: 

1. Provide text alternatives for any non-text content
2. Provide alternatives for time-based media
3. Present content in a meaningful sequence
4. Instructions should not rely on sensory characteristics
5. The user should be able to pause, turn off or lower the audio
6. Use sufficient contrast for text
7. Make all functionality available from a keyboard
8. Make focus clearly visible
9. Critical operations should be reversible
10. Use valid markup

Any questions or feedback? Please contact ola.gronlund@seb.se