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How to meet WCAG and improve accessibility for disabled users on your banking platform? First, you have to read through the guidelines and decide on the level you want to achieve. Then, it’s all about execution. Let’s look at this matter in a bit more detail.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- How to meet WCAG? This involves three steps:
- choosing WCAG compliance level for your bank,
- analyzing the whole of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, with a focus on those that meet your compliance level,
- finding issues in your existing IT architecture and fixing them.
- Sometimes, legacy solutions may make it difficult to meet all the WCAG requirements – it’s one of the signs that you need to start your digital transformation.
- If you outsource your software, improving accessibility for disabled users should be easier, since you’ll likely have better project documentation at your disposal; if you’re using ready solutions, they should already meet at least the AA level requirements.
You might also read: Digital accessibility in the accelerating age
How to Meet WCAG in Three Steps
Meeting WCAG on your internet banking platform does not have to be difficult – it’s likely that you’ve already met several WCAG criteria, for instance, to provide a better user experience. The hardest part is, in fact, finding all the elements that need to be changed if your website is big; the other steps are relatively simple. Let’s look at them now.
Step 1: Decide on the Accessibility Level
WCAG offers you guidelines for three levels of accessibility:
- A → basic,
- AA → strong,
- AAA → excellent.
In practice, you shouldn’t aim for the A level, since it’s too simple. AA is the most common goal (not only in banking but also in other industries), with the highest AAA being a bit more difficult to find.
Step 2: Learn the Relevant Guidelines
Secondly, you should read through Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, paying particular attention to specific guidelines that match your intended level. Ideally, this step should be carried out with a developer who’ll have insights into the technical site and knowledge about your platform. Based on this, prepare your own internal guidelines on what has to be changed.
You can find the official guidelines on the W3C official website.
Step 3: Locate, Change and Deploy
Since you know how to meet WCAG at this step, it is time to locate all the issues and fix them. This might be a lengthy process depending on the technology used in your retail banking solutions and the development standards in place, but it’s necessary to do this. If you’re using legacy technology, this might be much more difficult… but it’s also one more argument for an intense application modernization or even a turn towards a new, innovative platform.
What If You Use Third-Party Solutions?
If you’re working on third-party applications and internet platforms, you should have access to project documentation. This will make it significantly easier to locate and fix any accessibility issues.
Moreover, if you work with an outsourced team of developers, they likely know the WCAG inside-out, so they know how to meet it. Plus, if you choose a ready solution rather than customized development, you’ll be able to check its compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in advance, and they will most likely meet at least the AA level.
The Takeaway
How to improve accessibility for disabled users on your banking platforms? You have to get to know the WCAG, choose a compliance level, and analyze your existing solutions. The difficulty of this task depends purely on the size and documentation of your platform. What if you need help? Contact us at Ailleron – we’ll find and improve WCAG compliance for you!
You might also read: How to Design Accessible FinTech and Bank Solutions?
