In addition, from 2025, all new digital products or services will have to comply with the RGAA. For projects released before this date, it will be necessary to comply within 5 years. Also read our article: 2 years to make your digital services and products accessible .
If you want to ensure the digital accessibility of your website , it is essential to take these issues into account from the start of your project . If you only consider accessibility at the end of the design process, you will only get "band-aid" solutions. Thinking about these issues upstream and during all phases of the project allows you to better focus on the needs of people with disabilities, and therefore to design a more accessible site.
Illustration representing digital accessibility.
At the launch of the project
At the beginning of your digital project, in its definition phase, it is essential to set yourself the objective of meeting the RGAA criteria . Your compliance objective must be clearly defined and communicated internally, so that all stakeholders on the project understand the stakes.
Needs analysis
When analyzing needs, do not hesitate to conduct a user research phase that specifically takes into account people with disabilities. Interviews, surveys, focus groups or user tests can be conducted with them to understand more specifically their needs and how they use your services . By carrying out this research, you will be able to identify their specific needs:
Do they need a separate feature?
Any specific information?
Etc.
General user research will also help define the main needs of users, and therefore the priority paths for users of your services. They represent the crucial daily uses and should therefore be prioritized in terms of digital accessibility.
This needs analysis will allow you to write specifications or a call for tenders taking these questions into account. To help you on this subject, do not hesitate to call on an AMOA .
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Taking accessibility into account when drafting specifications and calls for tender
Once the needs are defined, the call for tender and/or truemoney database specifications can be drawn up. These must be clearly formulated to indicate that digital accessibility is an important criterion of the project , and that the website must be delivered in compliance with the RGAA criteria . The specifications must present the audit(s) that will be carried out, and specify that compliance with accessibility issues must be done by the chosen service provider(s).
Therefore, the choice of service providers will depend on the level of knowledge on this subject, their training, and their skills. Do not hesitate to ask them for proof, such as references of websites created and which have been assessed as compliant with the RGAA.
Digital accessibility in functional design
Functional design is also an essential phase of accessibility . During this phase, you will decide which elements will be present, how the tree structure of your website will be deployed, and what features are available. Several topics are essential to consider during this phase.
Access to information
People with disabilities generally need more time than an able-bodied person to navigate a website. This action is longer and more complex. It is therefore essential to facilitate their access to information . This is the work of UX designers.
The UX designers who will work on the project must design the site so that users, with or without disabilities, can navigate and find the content. The RGAA recommends , for example, the presence of at least two navigation systems , among: menu, site map and search engine. This allows your users to find information more easily, in the way that seems most practical and easy to them.
The presence of quick access links allows users who view pages in a linear (voice mode) or semi-linear (narrow screen width) manner to avoid having to scroll through all the elements on each page to access the content and provide shortcuts that speed up keyboard navigation and avoid repeated keyboard actions to navigate the page and reach the desired area. These elements will therefore be taken into account when creating prototypes .
Understanding how it works
Another important part of digital accessibility, but also of your website's user experience , is that your users must be able to understand how the site works . For this, one of the most important points is consistency . It is easier to learn how to use a website, if it always works the same way.
For example, your prototype designers will make sure that navigation systems are always in the same place and that they work in the same way. They will make sure that navigation within the site is easy to understand, whether for a keyboard user or someone using a voice synthesizer.
Functional design is very important to ensure a good user experience on your website, especially for people with disabilities.
Digital accessibility in graphic design
It's not always easy to find your way around when you want to design a modern, beautiful AND accessible site! Contrary to many preconceived ideas, making digital accessibility in no way prevents creative freedom . You just have to respect a few rules. It will be the role of the artistic director to follow these, while offering an original graphic identity.
One of the most important things to consider is colors and contrasts . When choosing a color palette for your website, you need to make sure that the color of the text (foreground) contrasts well with the background color. You may like your design, but it won't work if people with visual impairments like color blindness can't read your content. Your digital branding design will therefore depend on this rule, and you will need to choose colors with enough contrast to ensure accessibility .
The graphic design will also need to take into account the digital accessibility of the font and the possibility of increasing the size of the text and the spacing between letters, as well as the accessibility of the animations.
To create an accessible website, it is therefore essential that your artistic director is sensitive to digital accessibility and trained in these subjects.
Digital accessibility during the creation of the site
The teams responsible for the integration and development of a website or web application are responsible for the technical implementation of digital accessibility . A very large part of the result rests on their shoulders.
The entire development chain has a role to play
For example, the way information is presented will depend on the CSS formatting. It will be necessary to take into account the possibility of zooming, adapting and personalizing the interface for people who need it.
But it is also essential that HTML language standards are respected (page title, language indication, etc.) and that the code is perfectly valid so that it can be interpreted without problems by assistive technologies.
There are many other elements to take into account: the structuring of tables, of the document, the very structure of the HTML code, the management of JavaScript to ensure its accessibility, or even the forms.
Accessibility assessment
Creating an accessible site is a complex task, which requires trained teams, but also regular digital accessibility assessments .
Indeed, to develop an accessible site, it is essential that developers know how to use code verification tools , allowing them to correct accessibility errors. Support from an expert auditor also makes it possible to correct errors as soon as they occur, and therefore avoid higher correction costs.
