Accessibility of COVID-19 Vaccine Pages and Barriers to Individuals with Disabilities
WebAIM contributed to an article authored by Kaiser Health News and republished in the LA Times regarding the accessibility barriers posed by vaccine registration pages in the US. Our automated WAVE analysis of vaccine information and registration web sites for all 50 state (plus DC) sites discovered that most sites may pose notable barriers to users with disabilities. All but 13 of the 94 pages tested had detectable accessibility issues.
On average the 94 state-level COVID-19 vaccine pages averaged 18.9 detectable errors. The most common error was low contrast text. Other common issues were images missing alternative text, empty links and buttons, and missing form input labels (text that would describe the purpose or function of form fields). While automated tools, such as WAVE, cannot detect all or even most accessibility issues, the issues detected tend to be highly impactful for users with disabilities. These potential barriers may be considered discriminatory and thus put the page owners at risk.
The accessibility of these pages is generally better than average home pages on the web, [...]