One in four people in the United States — and more than a billion people worldwide — have a disability. Accessibility is the inclusive practice of removing barriers that prevent people with disabilities from doing what they need to do online. Integrating simple web page elements can have a huge impact on the experience these types of users have when visiting your website.
Accessibility DCI Score
The accessibility DCI score contains two categories of accessibility issues:
WCAG conformance: Levels A, AA, and AAA issues related to WCAG 2.1
Accessibility best practices: Issues related to WAI-ARIA authoring practices and general accessibility best practices.
The Accessibility DCI score is made up of 90 points awarded for WCAG conformance (Levels A, AA, and AAA), with the remaining 10 points gained for the use of accessibility best practices.
Example of Accessibility DCI Score
The accessibility checks are based on the Accessibility Conformance Rules (ACT) Format 1.0 adopted by the W3C in 2019. Accessibility Conformance Testing Rules (ACT) is incorporated into the Accessibility DCI score to give an accurate measurement of the level of accessibility. The accessibility checks meet the success criteria under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1).
Best Practices
What do “best practices” mean?
WAI-ARIA authoring practices are checks that help track the quality implementation of ARIA to ensure that it’s correctly implemented and used.
Accessibility best practices are checks related to content and code that have a significant impact on user experience but are not covered by WCAG.
One example is the detection of improper use of heading tags on a page (H1, H2, H3). These enable screen readers to navigate a page much faster.
Even though complying with WCAG is an important goal, keeping Best Practices in mind is important too since they can have a significant impact on user experience.