An accessibility statement is a webpage that communicates an organization’s commitment to making its products and services accessible to people with disabilities.
Why Do You Need An Accessibility Statement?
Publishing an accessibility statement is an important step to consider when making accessibility improvements to your website. It’s a way to communicate your efforts and should outline specific goals, testing standards, and features available.
Here’s what having an accessibility statement on your website communicates:
- You value users with disabilities and are making improvements to better support them
- You know what accessibility features are supported and what issues still exist
- You make it easy for users to report any issues or barriers
5 Essential Components
The next question you might ask is “what should that statement include?” Here are five important elements to consider when writing your own accessibility statement.
- Make it a dedicated page on your website. Publishing an accessibility statement as a dedicated page allows users to easily read about your commitment to web accessibility and existing testing efforts. This page can be linked in your website footer and returned in search results. All of those things make this information easier to find for users who are specifically looking for it.
- Call out the WCAG standards level you test against. Hopefully, you’re targeting a specific level of WCAG compliance (A, AA, AAA) when testing your website. It’s helpful to call out what level of accessibility support you aim to meet.
- Detail specific testing routines and features supported. Your testing should include specific, repeatable tasks that are used to evaluate any changes in content, design, or code. This can include things like automated testing tools, manual user testing, and testing with specific assistive technology (like screen readers and magnifiers).
- List any features known to be an issue. Being clear about existing accessibility issues can help users understand what they can expect when navigating your website. It may seem counterintuitive to call out issues about your website, but this goes a long way in minimizing the frustration of discovering these issues without warning.
- Provide a clear contact method for reporting issues. If a user is experiencing an accessibility issue with your website, they’ll seek out specific contact details for reporting the issue or requesting support. Making this info easy to find will reduce confusion and help to garner trust. This does mean you’ll need to establish a dedicated channel for accessibility inquiries and a standardized process for responding to accessibility requests.
Accessibility Statement Examples
Here are three examples of great accessibility statements. I’ve highlighted sections of each example that utilize the five essential components detailed above. You’ll notice that each example checks some of the boxes, but not all. There’s always room for improvement when it comes to clear messaging around accessibility support.
Eli Lilly and Company
Mass General Brigham Hospital
CVS Health
Ethan Marcotte
