Poor Contrast Lowers Accessibility Scores for Many Telecom Websites

Courts have split on whether the Americans With Disabilities Act’s Title III applies to websites. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in April that it doesn’t. That decision is consistent with rulings by the 3rd, 6th and 9th circuits, but the 1st and 7th circuits “by contrast, have found that Title III of the ADA is not limited to physical locations,” Ballard Spahr said in a blog post. “Unless and until the U.S. Supreme Court resolves the circuit split, plaintiffs’ attorneys will continue to file... lawsuits against businesses.”

Lawsuits often drive entities, including nonprofits, to better accessibility, said consultancy firm Accessibility Partners' founder Dana Marlowe. When people sue under the ADA, it’s not for financial damages but for remedies, said Sharon Rosenblatt, communications director at Accessibility Partners. Most flaws aren’t noticeable to most website users. They make it more difficult for those who depend on assistive technology, whether with a smartphone, tablet or computer, to read aloud what’s on the page or to describe photos or other images on the page, said website designer William Donahoe.

Frequent flaws we saw using www.webaccessibility.com and Lighthouse included background and foreground color not having sufficient contrast, the lack of alternative text for images, and links not having discernable names. Someone with low vision requires good contrast, said Donahoe. Vision disability is one of the top 10 disabilities among adults 18 years and older, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A link not having a discernable name means that the HTML code wasn't written so the assistive technology knows what’s on the screen. “The Twitter icon doesn’t mean anything to the screen reader,” said Donahoe. Lack of alternative text means the computer code doesn’t include a detailed description of an image or photo, he said. Similarly, in its best practices document, Accessibility Partners advises against linking to the term “click here,” saying to use descriptive terms for URLs.

Historically, it was difficult to add sufficient details on the backend, said Donahoe. Today, more tools are available “for baking in this, and that’s all super helpful for adoption,” he said. “When a framework has accessibility built in, it reduces the mental strain,” he said. “If you’re copying and pasting, it’s already built in.”

BSA|The Software Alliance ranked among the highest with both trackers we used. Webaccessibility.com gave it 100 for its About page and 98 for its homepage, while Lighthouse rated those pages in reverse. BSA didn’t comment. Webaccessibility.com scored Telecommunications Industry Association at 100 for both pages; Lighthouse gave it 96 for both. Similarly, the Information Technology Industry Council received 100s from webaccessibility.com and 97s from Lighthouse. The Alliance for Community Media ranked in the 90s, with an 84 from Webaccessibility.com for its homepage. Webaccessibility.com rated the National Translator Association’s Who We Are page at 96 and homepage 100; Lighthouse ranked both in the 90s.

“ITI coordinates with governments, consumers, and industry partners to promote accessibility policies and standards worldwide,” emailed Jennie Westbrook Courts, ITI vice president-communications. “It’s important that our website reflects that priority. To that end, ITI works to ensure our website’s format is accessible and that everyone, regardless of ability, can get the information they need.” The organization regularly reviews the site, she said, working “to incorporate best practices based on available guidance and user feedback.”

ACM issued a request for proposals for a membership website revamp in 2019 and 2020, with accessibility a focus, said CEO Mike Wassenaar. “My members typically are thinking about access technology as part of their core mission,” he said. “The idea of adapting tech to human beings is very much a core part of our mission. It’s not that big a stretch” to ensure the website is accessible.

At the lower end, the Wireless ISP Association scored in the 80s from accessibility.com and 60s from Lighthouse. The trackers flagged it for such things as “Form elements do not have associated labels” and “Background and foreground colors do not have a sufficient contrast ratio.” The latter cited flaws such as Accessible Rich Internet Applications input fields not having accessible names, meaning an assistive device wouldn’t be able to interpret what the developer means, said Donahue.

The two trackers sometimes ranked the same pages disparately. The Computer & Communications Industry Association received in the 90s from accessibility.com but 60s with Lighthouse -- 63 for its About page. CCIA didn’t comment.

When APTS “redesigned our website in 2017, accessibility to our site was taken into account. As technology continues to evolve, we are continually working to improve the user experience and accessibility of the APTS website for all,” said CEO Patrick Butler in a statement.

“The website is the core function of what we do as an association,” said Mike Wendy, WISPA’s communications director, saying the organization uses a contractor to ensure “we’re at industry practices and best practices.” Wendy is the person who uploads many of the changes on the site. In the 2-½ years he’s been doing that, he said, “I have never once gotten an accessibility complaint.” When WISPA gets suggestions on improvements, it incorporates them, Wendy said.

Rosenblatt advised organizations to create focus groups or a task force to get feedback from users with disabilities. Donahue agreed “it’s hard to really gauge from those tools how accurate” websites “are because every audience is different. … I think the scores are a good indicator that you need to improve, but a lot of those fixes can be done really quickly.”

“How strict an organization is” in following standards “really does drive how accessible a website becomes,” said Marlowe, referring to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, issued by the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative. “We are moving in a positive momentum” toward better website accessibility, Marlowe said. College computer coding classes now include accessibility, she said.

RespectAbility founder Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi stressed the need for captions on websites that use video, plus live captioning during videoconferencing. “There’s a very large number of people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The vast majority of them were not born that way; they became that way with age,” she said. “They probably don’t identify as deaf; they just say, ‘I’m old and hard of hearing.’” Captions are helpful, too, for immigrants, she said. Mizrahi also recommended social media be accessible.