Front-End Accessibility
Vuture is committed to supporting web accessibility standards wherever possible and our system is designed to allow you to create content that fully complies with all accessibility guidelines.
These are three main sources for these standards:
The WCAG Guidelines have three levels: Priority 1, 2 and 3. Priority 1 items must be satisfied, Priority 2 items should be satisfied and Priority 3 items may be satisfied.
These guidelines are designed to make web content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these. Implementing these standards also has the advantage of making web content more usable to users in general.
By front-end we mean the web pages that visitors view in their browser. This is either through websites created using the website module or landing pages in the email module.
The accessibility level reached for front-end pages is solely down to the templates created for the pages. There is nothing in the Vuture platform preventing the highest priority level being reached but certain designs may make it harder to satisfy certain requirements.
If you require that certain accessibility standards are met when creating templates please indicate this before the templates are built.
The most common principles that should be followed are:
- The keyboard should provide access to navigation using the tab, arrow, and enter keys without the use of a mouse
- When using the keyboard for navigation, the cursor should move in a logical flow or order
- All page elements (links, radio buttons, text boxes, and drop down menus) should work when selected
- Colours need to have strong contrast and be visible to people with visual impairments such as colour-blindness. There are several online tools which allow you to enter hex codes to see if the contrast is appropriate or not. Here's one example:
https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ - Text for links should explain their purpose and provide context
- ALTernative text should be provided for all non-text elements, for example, images
- Captions should be provided for multimedia elements
- Web pages should be readable when the stylesheet is disabled
- Colour elements that cannot be identified should be avoided
- Tables should include column headings and row names
- Avoid the use of frames
- Provide the ability for a user to request more time if there is a timed response required
- Form fields should be labelled and organised in a logical order that you can tab through
- Links should be provided for any applets, plug-ins, or third-party software that might be required to access content on the web page
Templates can be tested using tools such as http://wave.webaim.org/ , which also offers Chrome and Firefox plugins, to ensure that all required accessibility guidelines are met.
Back-End Accessibility
The back-end refers to the content management and administration system itself.
The standards followed in this case are:
The principles that we try to follow wherever possible in the system are:
Make the authoring tool user interface accessible
- Make sure the user interface follows applicable accessibility guidelines
- Editing-views are perceivable by making alternative content available to authors and ensuring that editing-view presentation can be programmatically determined
- Editing-views are operable by:
- Provide keyboard access to authoring features
- Provide authors with enough time
- Help authors avoid flashing content that could cause seizures
- Enhance navigation and editing via content structure
- Provide text search of the content
- Allow users to manage preference settings
- Ensure that previews are at least as accessible as user agents
- Editing-views are understandable
- Help authors avoid and correct mistakes
- Document the user interface, including all accessibility features
Support the production of accessible content
- Fully automatic processes produce accessible content
- Ensure that automatically-specified content is accessible
- Ensure that accessibility information is preserved
- Authors are supported in producing accessible content
- Ensure that accessible content production is possible
- Guide authors to produce accessible content
- Assist authors with managing alternative content for non-text content
- Assist authors with accessible templates
- Assist authors with accessible pre-authored content
- Authors are supported in improving the accessibility of existing content
- Assist authors in checking for accessibility problems
- Assist authors in repairing accessibility problems.
- Authoring tools promote and integrate their accessibility features
- Ensure the availability of features that support the production of accessible content
- Ensure that documentation promotes the production of accessible content