Good accessibility makes it possible to reach a large population     

Accessibility can be defined as a human right. It provides access to critical products, services, and environments for everyone.  

The types of disabilities to which accessibility responds are multiple, they can be motor, visual, auditory, psychological, or result from intellectual differences or disabling diseases. Depending on the circumstances, they can affect an individual over the course of their life in a situational, temporary or permanent way.  

In total, 80% of the 12 million people with disabilities in France - or 9.6 million - live with some form of invisible disability, which occurred in adulthood or young adulthood.  

Accessibility brings benefits for the company  

Access to products and services by populations with disabilities confers many benefits for companies that adapt:   

Minimizing the legal risk

Many countries have laws in place requiring digital accessibility, and the legal issue of accessibility is becoming more and more important. 

Increasing market share   

The global market for people with one or more disabilities is more than one billion people, with a purchasing power of more than six trillion dollars. Digital accessibility often improves the experience for all users.  

Supporting innovation 

Accessibility features built into products and services solve unexpected problems. 

Improving Brand Perception 

Diversity and inclusion efforts that are necessary to the company's success are accelerated by a clear and well-integrated commitment to accessibility. 

A better understanding of the standards to comply with   

The European standard "Accessibility Requirements for ICT Products and Services" (EN 301549) specifies accessibility requirements for information and communication technology (ICT) products and services.  

On 28 June 2025, the European EAA Directive (European Accessibility Act) will enter into force at national level in each of the 27 EU Member States. It is therefore essential that any company operating products or services in the EU complies before this deadline. Four main principles emerge from this guideline for website and mobile app design: Noticeable, Operable, Understandable and Robust.  

Benchmarks to apply these standards have been drawn up to help companies and public services comply with them. Depending on the market in which you are located, it is interesting to choose the one that is the most relevant. 

The RGAA reference framework   

In France, the RGAA (General Accessibility Improvement Framework) accessibility reference framework was drafted to meet the EN 301549 standard and was set up by the Interministerial Digital Directorate (DINUM) to make it mandatory and facilitate the accessibility of digital sites and services. Its objective is to give all French citizens, regardless of their situation (visual, hearing, motor, cognitive, temporary or permanent disability) equivalent access to these digital products and services.  

In its first part on legal obligations, we find the following topics: 

• Notions of digital accessibility  
• Reminder of the scope of application  
• Assessment of compliance with the reference standard  
• What is an Accessibility Statement  
• Multi-year accessibility plan  
• Mandatory information and pages 

In its second part, it is the technical implementation method that is addressed: 

• Testing criteria  
• The glossary 
• Test environments 

The WCAG standard   

Internationally, the most well-known standard is the WCAG. It aligns with generic implementation standards for accessibility, grouped within the guidelines of perception, use, understanding and robustness.   

The WCAG guidelines have been designed to apply to all types of technologies. They can therefore be applied to code, mobile applications, PDFs, documents, audio files, videos, software, SaaS (Software as a Service) platforms, etc. 

Three key pillars of success to make digital accessible   

Once the benefits of accessibility are understood and the reference framework to be complied with has been identified, it is necessary to look at the areas in which to intervene in order to comply. To do this, it is necessary to work with all the teams and stakeholders involved.  

Did you know that 67% of accessibility issues are related to design? This concerns interactions, content and all design elements (Deque study).  

At the beginning of the design, we naturally find the design part, through which it will be necessary to design a design system that is easy to use thanks to the atomic design. This is followed by development that will focus on easy-to-understand code, provide clear guidelines and testing tools. It is important to frame accessibility as early as possible because the more mature you are in the stages of product development, the more the average cost of a problem increases. For example, correcting a problem at the development stage costs 5 times more than if it had been solved at the design stage, while this cost will be 30 times higher if it reaches the production stage. 

Correcting accessibility problems  

Finally, as with any digital product, documentation is essential to clearly document the features’ accessibility rules. This documentation can be recorded in tools such as Confluence or Notion, and can take the form of a design system. It is a set of standards and reusable elements, including visual components, design rules, and style guidelines, intended to ensure consistency and efficiency in the development of digital or branded products.  

A best practice is to create two different design systems: one for design and one for development. This allows them to be paralleled. This documentation can be built by emphasizing what interests each of these trades: the user experience for designers and functional and optimized code for developers.  

When a team works in agile, a best practice is to include an accessibility-related fix as a User Story, which is itself included in an Epic dedicated to accessibility, for example. 

Evangelizing for better integration 

It is necessary to work with all the teams and stakeholders involved in the implementation of good accessibility so that it is better understood and integrated into strategic decisions, product design and growth. To acculturate the organization in this regard, the accessibility audit is an interesting tool that is easy to disseminate, with some adaptations depending on the type of interlocutor. There are 3 main means of evangelization: 

• Communicate the importance of accessibility at all levels and in external teams 
• Expand knowledge and maturity on accessibility in the organization 
• Onboard the leaders who have the most influence on the company's culture 
  

Onboarding teams step by step: the basics in 3 key objectives  

1. INCREASE THE LEVEL OF MATURITY OF THE ORGANIZATION 
   It is interesting to start with a presentation with an outline of the audit results in order to gain ongoing support from the organization.  
2. SHARE WITH TEAMS 
   The operational teams will feel more concerned when faced with a presentation with a focus on the users and the system design. This provides an opportunity to significantly improve usability in the audited items. 
   Onboarding multiple teams helps to extend the culture of accessibility across the organization and make this component of design more automatic in processes.  
3. SHARE WITH LEADERS 
   For this stratum of the company, a presentation with a focus on the impact on users and the business is relevant. OKRs (Objective Key Results) can be used to scale problems to a broader organizational level. 
   Onboarding leaders makes it possible to establish them as spokespersons for compliant accessibility. 
   

Your digital product needs to be more accessible but you don't know where to start? Do you have concerns about the compliance of your product with the regulations?