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European accessibility act: the importance of accessibility

What will happen on June 28, 2025?

The European Accessibility Act, or EAA, introduced in April 2019, must be complied with by all companies operating in the European Union starting June 28, 2025. This means that products and services offered by these companies must meet certain accessibility requirements. The EAA mainly focuses on the accessibility of digital products and services, such as websites and mobile apps. So if you have a company operating in the EU, you need to prepare and make sure you meet the requirements of the EAA.

In Belgium, the Government can impose sanctions for organizations that do not comply with accessibility requirements. Penalties for non-compliance will likely be similar to those imposed for mishandling personal data under the GDPR. Perhaps they will be high enough to ensure that organizations take accessibility seriously.

There is one big difference with the GDPR. More than mail traffic or newsletters, Web sites are publicly accessible. So all in all, it becomes relatively easy to verify your Web site's compliance with WCAG 2.1 guidelines. So detecting and punishing violations will also be a lot faster.

Audit

We thoroughly screen your current website and present you with a report that clearly shows the status of accessibility. With a concrete roadmap for EAA compatibility.

EAA Consultancy

During project preparation and implementation, we provide targeted advice. Our accessibility experts help design, engineer or develop your website or web app.

Design and development

UX experts, web designers and developers form a team to make the execution of your project EAA compatible. 

EAA, accessibility

What is the EAA?

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is legislation introduced by the European Union in April 2019. The purpose of the EAA is to ensure that products and services offered in the EU are accessible to all. This seeks to combat discrimination and exclusion.

The EAA mainly focuses on the accessibility of digital products and services, such as websites, mobile apps, digital self-service devices and digital services offered by the government. There are also requirements for physical products, such as computers, smartphones, television sets and books. The EAA applies to most companies operating in the EU, with the exception of very small companies offering services only.

All companies covered by the EAA must ensure that their products and services meet the accessibility requirements set. This means, for example, that websites and mobile apps must be designed in a way that is accessible to people with visual, motor or cognitive impairments. Self-service devices must also have adaptations for people with disabilities, such as an audio output or a Braille keyboard. Companies that fail to comply with EAA requirements can be fined and risk reputational damage.

WCAG perspective video's

Wondering why it's so important? These videos show how important accessibility is for all kinds of people in all kinds of situations.

Teamwork leads to accessibility

To ensure that Web sites are ultimately EAA compatible, all roles in a Web site project have clear responsibilities.

UX -and web design
In the design phase, it is important to already take some of these guidelines into account. Not only should there be enough color contrast between the text and background color, certain specific components need to be designed, such as transcripts for videos, animations and effects need to be taken into account.

Web Development
It is the job of the developers to ensure that most of the guidelines are met. They make sure that we website is structurally sound, that all clickable content can be reached with the keyboard, that screen readers read out the right information and so on. Their goal is to apply the accessible design provided to the best of their ability so that all requirements are met.

Content management
The administrator's job is mainly to make the completed content accessible. They do this by, among other things, adding accurate descriptions to images, watching over the structure of titles in the free content fields, and ensuring that videos include accompanying transcripts and subtitles. 

Open source and Accessibility

The Drupal community aims to create an accessible platform for designers and developers. We strive to make all features of Drupal Core conform to the guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Since 2009, Drupal has implemented accessibility improvements in every version, including Drupal 7, 8 and 9. Currently, Drupal is striving to achieve WCAG 2.1 AA.

Drupal uses automated tests, such as WebAIM's WAVE, Deque's Axe and Microsoft's Accessibility Insights, to detect accessibility issues. However, they recognize that automated tools and checklists have limitations and that manual testing and input from users with experience with limitations are needed to create an inclusive experience.

Drupal supports the proper application of semantic markup to create robust experiences that adapt to users' individual tools. Examples of such tools include text-to-speech tools, speech-to-text, hardware input devices and screen magnification tools.

These measures allow you to use Drupal with disabilities as an editor and also as an end user.

How can we help you?

Of course, Calibrate offers support in making your website more accessible. Our team of WCAG experts will perform an audit of your current website. We draw up a report that reveals where the pain points for visitors with certain restrictions are located. We will also prepare a technical analysis of what technical steps need to be taken to comply with the guidelines.

Did you know?

If you want to demonstrate compliance with the EAA, you need to demonstrate how you comply with EN 301 549. This standard currently includes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. You must also have an accessibility statement on your site.

There are three levels of conformance within the WCAG criteria (level A, AA and AAA). In the EU, organizations must conform to the WCAG criteria at an "AA" level (which includes all A and AA criteria).

Need support?

Our team of WCAG experts will perform an audit based on your current website.

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