Purpose

The purpose of this resource is to provide a guide for owners of websites and mobile applications to describe the accessibility of their products and services. The purpose of the resulting accessibility statements is for people with disabilities to get an understanding of the accessibility of a product or service, and where to get information or leave feedback if the product or service is not accessible. A secondary purpose of the resulting accessibility statements is to support monitoring and procurement of web and mobile accessibility.

Introduction

This page describes the requirements for providing an internationally harmonized accessibility statement. The purpose of this accessibility statement is to support consistent reporting of the accessibility of websites and mobile applications. It provides a model that will help and guide owners of websites and mobile applications who wish to publish an accessibility statement on their website or mobile application. The reason for a statement can be organizational, local, or national requirements like the EU Directive 2016/2102 in Europe. A reason could also be the wish of an organization to provide harmonized accessibility information to the public. The model accessibility statement will be aligned with the authoritative interpretation of WCAG and with step 5c of WCAG-EM.

With an accessibility statement, the owner of a website can explain how their website or mobile application conforms to WCAG. The statement also informs visitors about accessible alternatives for inaccessible content. In case of inaccessibility, the statement can include what measures will be taken to repair the barriers and in the meantime point to the accessible alternatives. The resulting accessibility statement also provides users with information and a link to a feedback mechanism.

The accessibility statement can (optionally) be used to describe other measures taken to promote accessibility of the website or mobile application and to report on additional organizational, local, or national requirements for the statement. For this reason, the model accessibility statement shall consist of essential and optional requirements. The essential requirements are those required by WCAG and WCAG-EM. The optional requirements may include additional measures or information as a result of organizational or other (legal) requirements or policies. The owner of a website or mobile application may also consider adding additional information concerning their accessibility. The model accessibility statement will provide a 'datamodel' comparable to the model produced in WCAG-EM to help harmonize consistent reporting.

Objectives

The objectives include:

To guide owners of websites and/or mobile applications to create an accessibility statement, which is intended to be used by people with disabilities
For people with disabilities to understand the accessibility of websites and/or mobile applications
For people with disabilities to know where to go or who to contact if there are issues with the accessibility of a website or mobile application
For procurers and persons or organizations monitoring to understand the level of accessibility/conformance
To support consistent and harmonized reporting of the accessibility of a website or mobile application

Audience

Primary Audience

The primary audiences are:

Persons who need to create an accessibility statement: This can be owners of websites and mobile applications, or those responsible for the website or mobile application. Providing an accessibility statement could be voluntarily or required. The requirement could be from the organization, itself, or from a broader initiative such as the EU Directive etc. This guidance provides an internationally harmonized model to generate an accessibility statement, including an example for the page markup.
Users with disabilities: They may find information about accessible alternatives, accessibility support and/or information about where they can provide input and/or feedback on the accessibility of a website or mobile application. They will also benefit from a harmonized and consistent model.
Other users of accessibility statements: This can be persons or organizations who want to use the statements for procurement, monitoring agencies, government agencies and others who need information about the conformity of a website or mobile application.

Secondary Audience

Accessibility Champions: Such as advocates for web and mobile accessibility within organizations, who want to increase public accountability to accessibility.
Researchers and other interested persons/organizations: The Accessibility Statement provides them with structured data/markup they could use for research.
Corporate Social Responsibility officers: They may want to report on the accessibility of their website and search for a harmonized way to do that.

Related Resources

WCAG2.0 Conformance Claims
WCAG-EM Evaluation Statement
Developing Organizational Policies (Statement)
EU Directive 2016/2102 (in article 7)
UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) reporting guidelines
VPAT2.0 (revised)
Revised Section 508
Other, to be discussed

Approach

We are thinking about a document that explains how to make a model accessibility statement that is valuable to all the above audiences. The model is built to serve as a consistent markup/data example. After agreeing on the requirements document (this document), we will focus on the requirements for essential and then optional information in the model accessibility statement. Then we will provide guidance for every one of them, describing what the information is and how it can be reported including the data format. This may be particularly challenging for the difference between a website and a mobile application (and for mobile applications inter alia). How to choose the scope of a mobile application and where to publish the statement. This will be covered in the guidance. Finally we can build a template page that contains the essential and optional information.

The proposal is to test the accessibility statement with the targeted audiences to fine-tune the guide and contents for usability and accessibility.

Deliverables

Model Accessibility Statement: Aligned with the WCAG requirements for making “conformance claims” and Step 5.c “Provide an Evaluation Statement” of the W3C Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM). The goal of this objective is to expand this guidance and provide a model accessibility statement. The model includes essential and optional elements.
Data/Markup model for reporting: Provide a 'Data/Markupmodel' to support consistent and harmonized reporting. In its simplest form, this could be a marked-up page like the page generated by the WCAG-EM report tool (https://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/report-tool/#/view_report).

List of requirements

General requirements for the model accessibility statement

Must be conformant with WCAG and provided in an accessible format with the website or mobile application
Output should be human and machine readable
...

Examples of essential requirements

From the proposal for an accessibility statement for the European Directive. The following elements should be required by the model accessibility statement:

Title' - This can be: [Name of the organisation] Accessibility Statement [further detailing if necessary]
Introduction' - Short introductory paragraph for people who don't know what accessibility or an Accessibility Statement is.
Name of website/mobile app – Name of the website or mobile app. This includes version information and date. 
Description - A brief description of the website or mobile app in scope of this Statement.
Scope limitations - Describe any limitations to the scope of this Accessibility Statement (what parts of the portal/service/app does this Statement not cover) 
Date - Date on which the Statement was last modified
Conformance Status – The options for the conformance status are:
- Fully conformant: The website or mobile app fully meets the standard/guideline without any exeptions (or by using accessible alternatives as described in the Standard/guideline).
- Partially conformant: A specific functionality of the website or mobile app is non-conformant with the standard/guideline.
- Non conformant: The majority of the website or mobile app is non-conformant with the standard/guideline.
- No assessment available: The website or mobile app has not been evaluated against the standard/guideline or the evaluation result is not available.
Evaluation report – Details about the evaluation methodology that was followed and the testing that was carried out to draw conclusions about accessibility. If a test report is available then link to it. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG-EM/#step5
Contact information - For questions about this Statement. This could be an email of the person responsible for the Accessibility Statement. It is important to point out the person or department directly responsible for accessibility is important to point out.
Notes - Any information important for the understanding of this Statement
Remarks and explanation - Explanation of the parts of the content that are not accessible, and the reasons for that inaccessibility and, where appropriate, the accessible alternatives provided for to justify the conformance level and conformance status. When the conformance level is ’Partial conformant’ or ‘Non conformant’, the explanation requires information about:
- Website (and mobile application) areas that do not conform
- Reasons for not conforming. Explain which Success Criteria are non-conformant and indicate why
- If a SC does not apply, explain why it does not apply
- Explain accessible alternatives that are used (if available) and why they have been used
Feedback - An invitation to send feedback about the Accessibility Statement (This is a description of, and a link to, a feedback mechanism)
Request accessible format - A possibility to request information that is not accessible.
Enforcement procedure - Description of and link to enforcement procedure.

Examples for optional requirements

From the proposal for an accessibility statement for the European Directive:

Compliance basis' - Where do the requirements originate (organization, legal requirement, ..)
Quality assurance method used - The quality assurance method used (WCAG-EM, internal QA, other)
Intention of the organization – The intention could be to reach a higher level of conformance or to work on full conformance of all websites and mobile apps. It also describes the manner in which digital accessibility is embedded in the organization's policy.
Conformance Measures – Add conformance measures to ‘remarks and explanations’. For every accessibility problem identified, describe the measures that will be taken and the schedule that indicates when those measures are put into effect.
Organisational measures – Measures implemented to achieve sustainable accessibility like procurement actions, training, raising awareness, QA, etc.
Formal confirmation – Formal confirmation on management level of the timeliness and the correctness of the Accessibility Statement, and confirmation that the designated administrator or other responsible person or function formally agrees with the content of the Accessibility Statement by the organization.

Timeline

May 2018: Requirements analysis approved by EOWG
June 2018: First draft reviewed by EOWG
July 2018: Second draft reviewed by EOWG
September 2018: Final draft reviewed by EOWG
October 2018: Approval and publication by EOWG

Accessibility Statements Requirements