Digital Accessibility: A Right for All, Not Just a Privilege
Author: Jalasa Sapkota
Published: 2024/10/01 - Updated: 2024/10/08
Publication Type: Informative
Topic: Website Accessibility - Publications List
Page Content: Synopsis Introduction Main
Synopsis: This article delves into specific barriers identified, offering practical recommendations based on global best practices to ensure digital platforms in Nepal are accessible to all.
Why it matters: This article highlights the critical importance of digital accessibility, particularly in Nepal, where many public websites fail to meet established accessibility standards. It discusses the findings of an audit conducted by Prayatna Nepal, which revealed numerous barriers preventing persons with disabilities from accessing vital information and services online. The article outlines four key principles of accessibility - perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust - and identifies major challenges in Nepali public websites, such as poor navigation design, illogical heading structures, and lack of captions for multimedia content. It provides practical recommendations for improving digital accessibility, including technical solutions and stakeholder engagement strategies. The article emphasizes that digital accessibility is a fundamental right, not just a privilege, and calls for collective action from government agencies, the private sector, civil society organizations, IT companies, and universities to create an inclusive digital environment - Disabled World (DW).
Introduction
As the world moves further into the digital age, access to online platforms has become a fundamental necessity for participation in daily life. In Nepal, however, many public websites fail to meet established accessibility standards, leaving persons with disabilities excluded from vital information and services. This digital divide not only reinforces existing social inequalities but also deprives many individuals of their basic rights.
Main Item
Prayatna Nepal's position paper, Prioritizing Digital Accessibility for Inclusive Development, addresses this issue by assessing the accessibility of widely used public websites and mobile applications. The audit reviewed sites such as the Association of INGOs in Nepal, the National Human Rights Commission, the National Inclusion Commission, the Social Welfare Council, Tribhuvan University, the Department of Health Services, the Nepal Stock Exchange and so on. The audit, conducted using Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), revealed numerous accessibility barriers across these platforms.
This article delves into the specific barriers identified, offering practical recommendations based on global best practices to ensure digital platforms in Nepal are accessible to all.
Why This Position Paper, and Why Now?
While Nepal has made strides in physical accessibility with the Accessible Physical Structure and Communication Service Directive (2013), digital accessibility remains largely overlooked. The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified this gap, with online services becoming essential. In response, Prayatna Nepal conducted an audit in April 2022, assessing 20 public websites and 10 mobile applications. The findings reveal significant barriers to access, highlighting the need for urgent reforms.
The Four Key Principles of Accessibility
The development of inclusive digital platforms is guided by four key principles of accessibility:
1. Perceivable: Information and user interface components must be presented in ways that users can perceive. This includes providing alternative text for images and ensuring that all media, such as videos, include captions and audio descriptions for users with sensory impairments.
2. Operable: The user interface and navigation should be operable by all users, including those who rely on keyboard navigation rather than a mouse. This means implementing features such as keyboard shortcuts, logical tab orders, and pause/stop buttons for auto-scrolling or slideshows. Websites should avoid any elements that trap keyboard users or prevent them from interacting effectively with the content.
3. Understandable: Websites should be designed to ensure that content is easy to read, comprehend, and navigate. Logical heading structures, meaningful link names, and consistent navigation methods enable users to find the information they need. Forms should be user-friendly, with clear instructions and error messages, making them accessible to persons with cognitive or visual impairments.
4. Robust: Content must be robust enough to be interpreted by a wide variety of assistive technologies. For instance, websites should be coded to ensure that screen readers and other assistive tools can access and present the information effectively. This includes proper use of HTML tags and ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes to convey the roles and properties of user interface elements. Major Accessibility Challenges in Nepali Public Websites
An assessment of public websites in Nepal revealed several significant barriers to digital accessibility, particularly for users with disabilities:
- Bypassing Repetitive Content: Websites often lack mechanisms for bypassing repetitive blocks of content, requiring users who rely on keyboard navigation to navigate through the same repeated content every time they access a page, making navigation cumbersome.
- Poor Navigation Design: Many websites do not offer multiple ways to locate content, such as search functions or sitemaps. This limitation makes it difficult for users-particularly those with disabilities-to quickly and easily find the pages or information they need.
- Illogical Heading Structures: The inconsistent use of heading levels across web pages poses significant challenges for screen-reader users. Without logical and hierarchical headings, users may struggle to understand the content structure, leading to confusion and inefficiency in navigation.
- Insufficient Colour Contrast: The colour contrast ratios on many websites fall below required standards, creating accessibility barriers for people with low vision or colour blindness and making it difficult for them to read and understand the content.
- Non-Descriptive Links and Files: Websites often feature links and downloadable files with non-descriptive or repetitive names, which confuses users and complicates navigation. Clear and descriptive file names are essential to help users, particularly those relying on assistive technologies, understand where links will lead.
- Lack of Captions and Transcripts: Many websites lack captions for videos and do not offer alternative formats such as sign language interpretation, transcripts, or audio descriptions. This absence of inclusive multimedia makes it difficult for users with visual, hearing, or multiple impairments to access the information.
- Nepali fonts: Nepali publications in Preeti font, often uploaded as inaccessible PDFs, are completely unreadable by screen readers, denying access to crucial information for visually impaired users.
Technical Recommendations for Improving Digital Accessibility
Based on the assessment findings, several recommendations have been proposed to enhance the accessibility of Nepal's public websites:
- Provide Alternative Text for Images: Every graphic element on a website should include clear, concise, and meaningful alternative text (alt text). For decorative images, the alt text should indicate that they are for decoration only, while actionable images like "Search Button" should have descriptive labels.
- Ensure Video Accessibility: All audio-visual materials should include captions, sign language interpretations, and transcripts to ensure users with hearing impairments can access the information.
- Improve Headings and Landmarks: Website headings should follow a logical and hierarchical structure to aid navigation. Additionally, landmarks such as header, main content, and footer should be correctly marked to help screen-reader users quickly locate information.
- Enhance Colour Contrast: All elements on a web page should meet the minimum colour contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for text sizes up to 14px and 3:1 for larger text. Ensuring sufficient contrast makes content more readable for users with visual impairments.
- Provide Descriptive Links: Links should have clear and descriptive names to convey their purpose in context. The use of generic link names like "Click here" or "See more" should be avoided, as these provide no information about the link's destination.
- Allow for Keyboard Navigation: All interactive elements on a page should be accessible via keyboard navigation. Websites should avoid "keyboard traps," where users cannot move to the next element using keyboard commands.
- Unicode fonts: All Nepali documents should be prepared using Unicode fonts rather than inaccessible fonts like Preeti. These documents should be provided in accessible Word or HTML formats.
Stakeholder Engagement in Promoting Digital Accessibility
In addition to technical recommendations, stakeholders-including government agencies, the private sector, civil society organizations, IT companies, and universities-play a crucial role in promoting sustainable digital accessibility:
- Government Initiatives: The federal government must amend relevant policies, perform regular digital accessibility audits, and raise awareness among public sector staff. This includes integrating digital accessibility into ICT curriculums and building the capacity of IT staff.
- Private Sector and Civil Society: These organizations should ensure their digital platforms comply with accessibility standards, conduct access audits, and develop internal policies to support ongoing digital inclusivity.
- IT Companies: Adopting the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is essential for IT firms, along with hiring accessibility testers to ensure inclusivity from the inception of any digital project.
- Universities: Academic institutions should incorporate digital accessibility into their curriculum and ensure their own digital platforms and educational resources are fully accessible to students with disabilities.
Conclusion
In the digital age, accessibility is not just a feature but a fundamental right that must be upheld for everyone. The findings outlined in this paper highlight a crucial moment for Nepal-a moment that calls for collective responsibility and commitment to inclusivity. Every step taken toward improving digital accessibility is a step toward a society that respects and values the contributions of all its members.
As we rally stakeholders from various sectors-government, private, civil society, and academia-we have the opportunity to create an equitable digital environment where barriers no longer exist and voices are amplified. Let us not merely advocate for change but be the change-makers who transform this vision into reality.
National Inclusion Commission: Are We Truly Inclusive in the Digital Age?: Is Nepal's National Inclusion Commission (NIC) truly inclusive, particularly in terms of digital accessibility.
Author Credentials:
Jalasa Sapkota is a visually impaired writer, researcher, and advocate for disability inclusion. With a background as a former Research Assistant at Diverse Patterns Limited and now as a Resource Person for the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment's (ICEVI) Gender Equality and Women's Rights Task Group, she has dedicated her career to advancing the rights and opportunities of persons with disabilities. Visit Jalasa's biography for comprehensive insights into her background, expertise, and accomplishments.