With the Jakarta release, we have made accessibility updates throughout the platform in relation to 508 compliance and WCAG 2.0 A and AA standards. While basic accessibility is included as part of the platform, these enhancements are meant to make the system more available and understandable to all users.

What is Section 508 and WCAG?

Before jumping into the accessibility enhancements in Jakarta, here's a little background on why we have them in place. Section 508 was signed into law in 1998, allowing for equal access to electronic and information technology. This means that a system is operated in a variety of different ways, not relying on a particular sense or ability of the operator. This expanded the previous Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as a result of the invention of the Internet, ensuring accessibility to web content. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 are a set of guidelines organized under four principles: websites must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Our goal in following these guidelines and principles is to make sure the interface is accessible to users with disabilities.

We made several changes to accessibility throughout the platform. Here is a quick overview of each, but you can find more information for feature-specific changes in the corresponding documentation.

Contrast UI theme

New in the Jakarta release, the Contrast UI theme provides more options and accessibility for those who have a hard time distinguishing colors with low contrast levels. You can even make these changes yourself. The theme is one of the system settings for the user interface that you can easily customize. I'll show you how to enable the Contrast UI theme in the next section.

Color and style accessibility improvements

In addition to the Contrast UI theme, these color and style changes make the platform more accessible:

• Improvements to alert color and font styles to make them more visible.
• Switch any color-heavy graphics, such as charts or graphs, to use patterns in addition to colors.

Keyboard accessibility improvements

These keyboard accessibility features allow users to navigate the platform using a keyboard:

• Tab order is consistent with expectations.
• Button labeling.
• Improved access to different UI elements.
• Consistency for fields and UI elements that have hints (or tooltips).
• Tab-through and arrow keys move items around in a slushbucket.
• When focused on tabs, right and left arrow keys switch between tabs.
• Arrow keys work within menus to navigate between entries.

Improvements for screen readers

These screen reader accessibility improvements make the platform accessible to screen readers:

• Screen readers announce when a page reloads.
• Add alternative text to styles. For example, you can add alternative text to the VIP style icon so that screen readers can call it out.
• In Connect, screen readers inform users when a member leaves a conversation, when a user is added or removed from a chat, and when uploads complete or fail.

For a full list of features in Jakarta that support WCAG to make the interface accessible to users, view the product documentation here: Accessibility features

For accessibility within the platform, no additional configuration is needed and users just need to enable a user preference to make it more accessible. This turns on tabbing for each page, including every item, with the option to skip to different places on a page.

Use the gear icon, which is located within the banner frame, to display the system settings pop-up window (shown below), and the system settings are organized by tab. Those users with an admin role see the Switch to UI15 button if UI16 is activated.

To enable accessibility:

• Users can enable this option from the system settings menu > General tab
• Admins can do this on behalf of users by navigating to User Administration > User preferences, and searching for the preference glide.ui.accessibility

This is just a small sample as to what is available with the release of Jakarta. Stay tuned for more articles and updates coming your way soon!