Patterns for accessible webchats – Accessibility in government

Patterns for accessible webchats

Patterns for accessible webchats

Posted by:
Theodor Vararu, Posted on: 9 December 2016

Categories:
Accessibility, Code, Design

I’m a developer at the Government Digital Service and I work with a team that, earlier this year, built a custom prototype webchat, as part of the webchat alpha.

We looked at which technologies help make webchat software more usable with screen readers. This blog post talks about what we did.

Why we focused on screen readers

Let’s be clear, there’s more to accessibility than just screen readers. Other accessibility needs are better met by improvements in visual design and content design. Users with visual impairments for example, may benefit from more accessible visual design, while users with dyslexia may benefit from accessible content design.

Screen readers are slightly different because they can be made to work better with very specific web platform technologies that are well known and documented, such as WAI-ARIA.

Below are some of our most important findings.

Buttons and labels

Labels provide context for screen readers so that they can tell users which options are available to them.

If your message submission field doesn’t have a visible label, you [...]

Read article at accessibility.blog.gov.uk

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