What does WCAG mean?
Digital accessibility ensures that everyone, including people with disabilities, can use job postings and other digital content. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) contain recommendations for making websites and apps accessible. Government organizations are required by law to comply and must publish an accessibility statement. All content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust so that anyone - including people with visual or motor impairments - can use websites and apps without problems. This not only increases accessibility, but also helps attract more applicants. Ubeeo's application forms and candidate portal are compliant and tested by the Accessibility Foundation, which awarded the highest possible score. This certificate can also serve as proof for government organizations.
Disclaimer
This article only deals with the vacancy text and the questions. Further styling options, minimum contrast, HTML errors, etc. will have to be set through the web party. Ubeeo offers the possibility to set up all digital application processes according to the WCAG guidelines, so that digital accessibility can be guaranteed. However, compliance with these guidelines depends on the setup and use of the system by the organization itself. It is the responsibility of the organization to ensure that all content and settings comply with WCAG standards.
Job texts
An essential part of this is the use of alternative text for images. This descriptive text ensures that screen readers can correctly convey information to visually impaired or blind candidates. Without alternative text, they miss important visual content that may be needed to properly understand the page:
In addition, videos will need to be added by the website hosting company to make them fully accessible. Videos can be a barrier for candidates, such as being difficult to operate or because not everyone can perceive the content. Using text and images instead of videos keeps the information accessible to a broader group of candidates. If videos are used, they should be supplemented with a transcript when only images are shown or a subtitle and audio description should be added when the video is with sound.
It is also important that proper formatting is used for the text itself. For proper formatting applies:
No bold, underlined or italicized text for structure, because screen readers do not always interpret this formatting correctly.
A logical heading hierarchy: the job title should always be a higher heading such as H2, and underlying titles follow as H3, H4, and so on. This helps users navigating with a screen reader to properly understand the structure of the page. For example, if a job title is an H2, the next underlying headline will need to be an H3.
Using the built-in list feature in Ubeeo for listings. This ensures that lists are displayed correctly and read aloud by tools such as screen readers. It also allows the web party to ensure that the correct styling is used for this.
Application forms
Not every question type is fully accessible to keyboard operators and screen readers. To ensure your form is fully compliant with accessibility guidelines (WCAG), avoid the following question types:
Phone field with plug-in → Use a standard text field instead.
Zip code field with plug-in → Use separate text field questions for zip code, address and/or city.
Multi-select field → This is not fully accessible by default. Use a checkbox group instead:
Request multiple files in one field → Ask for separate files instead.
We can enable the ‘stricter accessibility rules’ setting. When this happens, these question types are automatically changed to their recommended alternatives. Telephone fields then no longer use the plug-in and multi-selects are converted to checkbox groups. The zip code field continues to require manual adjustment.
Queries and error messages
To make the form easily fillable by candidates with screen readers, make sure the question wording is clear. For example, it is better for the question to be “What is your first name?” rather than "First name:". The same goes for the error messages the candidate sees when something is entered incorrectly. For example, under the headings ‘Error message field required’ and ‘Error message validation’, you can have a clear error message displayed with each question.
For example, under the heading 'Error message field required' you can show the error message The field 'What is your first name?' is required but not filled in, please fill it in.Under the heading 'Error message validation' you can use Your first name should not exceed 100 characters, remove characters so that the first name is under 100 characters.