Integration of ARIA and WCAG 2.1 AA Compliance

We want imc Express to be available to all learners worldwide, including people with disabilities. To achieve this, the issue of accessibility was very important to us when developing imc Express.

We therefore ensure that every edition of our learning content includes a version that is specially enriched with ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes. In addition, we fulfil the requirements of WCAG 2.1 AA (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) to ensure comprehensive accessibility.

What does ARIA mean?

ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. It is a set of HTML attributes developed to improve the accessibility of interactive web content and applications. These attributes provide additional information to assistive technologies such as screen readers to enable a better user experience for people with disabilities.

Our approach to integrating ARIA and WCAG 2.1 AA compliance

To ensure that our learning content is accessible to all and compliant with international standards, we integrate the following measures:

Roles

We define specific roles for interactive elements with role="button" for buttons, role="alert" for warning messages and other similar roles so that screen readers can correctly identify and announce them.

Labels

With the help of aria-label and aria-labelledby we provide additional descriptions for elements that are read by screen readers. This improves understanding and usability for users with visual impairments

Status indicators

Dynamic content that changes, such as progress indicators or notifications, are marked as aria-live regions. This ensures that screen readers announce changes correctly and in good time.

Hidden content

We mark elements that are invisible to visual users but could be relevant to screen readers with aria-hidden="true" to hide or show them specifically. This prevents confusion and improves the user experience for screen reader users.

Compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA

In addition to the integration of ARIA attributes, we ensure that our learning content complies with the requirements of WCAG 2.1 AA (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). These guidelines define how digital content must be designed to be accessible to all users. Here are some of the key requirements we take into account.

Perceivability

All our content is designed to be easily recognisable. This includes sufficient colour contrasts, text alternatives for non-text content and the ability to read content with screen readers or other assistive technologies.

Usability

Our interactive elements are designed to be navigable without a mouse. We ensure that all functions are accessible via keyboard and use ARIA attributes or alternative display formats to optimise the navigation sequence.

Comprehensibility

We make sure that the language is simple and clear. We also use ARIA attributes to provide additional instructions and explanations that can be recognised and read by assistive technologies.

Robustness

Our content is coded to be compatible with various assistive technologies. This includes regular testing and verification to ensure that the content works correctly on different devices and with different screen readers.

WCAG 2.1 AA compliance check

We regularly use specialised tools to check our content for compliance. The result of this accessibility check (with tools such as axe DevTools) shows that imc Express is WCAG 2.1 AA compliant.