What should be in your website accessibility page?

The content of accessibility pages has evolved over the years; from a fairly useless statement about the site passing the ‘Bobby’ standard, to practical advice about how visitors can modifying browser settings. And yes I know Bobby wasn’t a standard; so no need to get in touch to put me right.

If you want to be ‘right up to date’ with your accessibility statement you could do worse than take a lead from the BS 8878 (British Standard Web Accessibility Code of Practice). The BS 8878 suggests that your accessibility statement should contain the following information:

How visitors can make changes to their browser preferences.
How to use any accessibility tools you have provided.
It should make clear any limitations your site has (e.g. perhaps you have no captions on videos).
Provide an opportunity for visitors to get in touch, complain or give feedback.

A real example

Here is the accessibility statement written for the Get Connected And Lead website. Feel free to steal some of these ideas for your own website accessibility page.

Accessibility on this website

We have tried to ensure that this website is as accessible as possible. If you are having a problem please contact us, and we will do our best to help. You can also contact us by telephone, xxxx xxxxxxx and Textphone xxxx xxxxxxx.

(If your page has an accessibility toolbar such as ATBAR – mention it here and summarise its features. The Get Connected Site did not use a toolbar or third party accessibility feature).

Browser Preferences

Changing the preferences on your Web browser may help to make the site easier to use. It is possible to change text size and colour as well as background colours by making changes in the preferences or options section of your browser. The exact details of how to do this will be different for each type of browser so experimentation may be the order of the day.

The BBC has a very good page that covers a range of issues related to customising the settings of your web browser to make pages more accessible.

The BBC web accessibility page.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

We aim to meet WCAG version 1.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) Conformance Level “AA”, which means that all Priority 2 checkpoints will be met. We also aim to meet most of the Priority 3 checkpoints.

Limitations of this site

Within the scope of the WCAG AA standards we are not aware of any accessibility issues with this site. We welcome your feedback if you are finding it difficult to access any of the content.

This statement was last updated on: July 2011.

On a related note: website accessibility audits

I am offering ‘two for the price of one’ on accessibility audits for a limited time. Get in touch if you would like me to check the accessibility of your website and a partner organisation’s site. 🙂

Take my Web Accessibility Online Training Course - WCAG 2.1 Compliance

Learn to design and manage WCAG compliant, accessible websites with my online course

You will learn both the techniques of accessible website design and an entire ‘framework for thinking about the subject’. It will equip you with the skills to understand, identify and fix issues any accessibility issues you come across. Watch the free videos to get a taste of what is on the course.