WCAG #2 – 994 accessibility fixes, one compliant platform
Introduction:
ArdentCode has partnered with Wolters Kluwer for several years, and their latest need was to ensure that their flagship legal research platform, VitalLaw (formerly Cheetah™), meets WCAG 2.2 Level AA accessibility standards. This was a challenging task due to the large-scale, long-term nature of the project.
Focus:
- Ensuring that VitalLaw complies with WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards as recently more laws focus on web accessibility compliance.
- Addressing all accessibility issues identified by an external audit.
- Utilizing the ArdentCode team to implement the necessary fixes.
Objective:
To ensure that VitalLaw meets WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards, to enhance accessibility and compliance, thereby improving user experience and ensuring compliance with legal requirements.
Needs:
- Ensuring that VitalLaw complies with WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards, especially as more laws nowadays focus on web accessibility compliance.
- Fix all identified accessibility issues in the VitalLaw platform.
Approach:
- An external company conducted a thorough audit to identify accessibility issues.
- The ArdentCode team addressed all 994 reported issues, creating Jira tickets for each WCAG success criterion.
- External dependencies were resolved in collaboration with various teams
- Fixes were implemented in areas such as keyboard accessibility, colour contrast, HTML semantics and many others.
- Merged PRs covering some of the work, with ongoing efforts to fix issues, including those awaiting solutions from UI/UX designers and other teams responsible for external dependencies.
Key changes:
- Jira tickets were created for each WCAG success criterion, allowing developers to dive deeper into specific requirements.
- All issues that could be fixed in the main repository of the project were addressed and fixed.
- External dependencies were resolved in collaboration with various teams.
Results:
- 994 accessibility issues were identified and addressed.
- Improved compliance with WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards.
- Enhanced user experience for all users, including those with disabilities.
- Strengthened Wolters Kluwer’s reputation for accessibility and compliance.
- Contributed to a more inclusive digital environment, in line with global accessibility standards.
Conclusion:
Our collaboration with Wolters Kluwer has significantly improved the accessibility of their VitalLaw platform, demonstrating ArdentCode’s capability to handle complex accessibility challenges and deliver compliant solutions. This project highlights our commitment to creating inclusive digital experiences.
WCAG #1 – solutions with amazing scalability
Introduction:
As a part of blended team our team members cooperate in a Wolters Kluwer internal team. Its objective is to create tools that other Wolters Kluwer products can utilize to make the products brand compliant, follow the accessibility standards, and speed up the development. Our solutions are exceptionally scalable. By developing a single solution, we can successfully implement it across more than 100 different products, demonstrating its versatility and flexibility.
Focus:
- Shift the focus from the components that only look well to the components that also behave well.
- Provide the set of components that adhere to the best accessibility standards – WCAG
- Provide solutions that are compliant with ADA and EAA
Objective:
We aim to revise our principles to ensure that our components are not only visually appealing but also exhibit excellent functionality and behavior.
Needs:
Build DEV team awareness of the necessity of accessibility and providing information on what it involves.
Provide the components that prioritize accessibility, usability, and meet legal standards.
Approach:
- Leveraging our knowledge to address complex challenges and avoid common pitfalls.
- Analyzing how to implement WCAG requirements in client environments, ensuring compliance while sidestepping typical issues.
- We have introduced automated accessibility testing into our Continuous Integration pipeline.
- Proper keyboard navigation is now the must have in our components.
- We started using the screen reader on a daily basis.
- Strong collaboration with UX team regarding accessibility challenges.
Key changes:
- All the new components follow the best practices of the WCAG
- We introduced an automated verification process using the AXE tool to ensure that all new components comply with accessibility standards.
- All the new components put emphasis on intuitive keyboard navigation
- All the new components are built with semantically correct HTML
- All the new components are tested across all the most often used browsers and screen readers
Results:
- Components strictly adhere to WCAG AA guidelines and follow the best practices outlined by the W3C, ensuring that they are as semantic as possible and offer a seamless user experience.
- Hundreds of product teams can build their applications based on the blocks that meet the highest standards.
Conclusion:
The new strategy that we applied while creating the components helps us to provide the highest quality building blocks for our clients. These can be recommended as inspirational for other teams as a great starting point while building the user-friendly solutions yet following the guidelines of the ADA and EAA. The components are meticulously designed to meet these requirements, helping clients avoid potential legal challenges while fostering an inclusive online environment.