Is your App accessible? Deadline approaching

All Public Sector Apps need to comply with the latest accessibility regulations by June 2021.

By now all Public Sector websites should be accessible but Apps have had a little longer to adhere to regulations. June may feel far away but it’s fast approaching and doesn’t leave a lot of time for all that may be involved in making your App accessible. You will need to investigate and detect any non-compliances and rectify these in time for the deadline. Your findings are impossible to predict and the necessary measures required to ensure accessibility vary from App to App.

From June, The Government Digital Service (GDS) will begin checking Mobile Applications published by Public Sector bodies as it will then be a legal requirement that they are accessible.

Although this should be taken seriously, the last thing we want is for our clients to feel overwhelmed by this daunting task. This is why we’re here to guide and support you through the process. Simply put, your Mobile App will meet the newer legal requirements if you:

Accessibility regulations have been put in place for good reason, to provide digital equality. All users with and without disabilities have the right to the same online experience.

We believe in this too, which is why our commitment is to meeting WCAG 2.1 AA standards which are internationally regarded web standards created by W3C and backed by the UK government. We feel we can achieve conformance to AA standards by paying attention to the guidelines throughout the design, development and testing process, constantly learning and refining what we do along the way. However, guidelines update and develop over time which means design decisions once made to include all users may now fail new criteria. This is why we strongly advise our clients to arrange for us to audit existing Apps. We can then advise you on the results and how to proceed, fixing any issues discovered and providing you with a WCAG 2.1 compliant App. We will also construct an accessibility statement for you which contains legally required wording and publish this on your app.

If this is something you are interested in please get in touch with our Client Services department on 0117 949 8008 or email hello@thisisfocus.co.uk. We look forward to hearing from you and working together to ensure our digital solutions are accessible to, and usable by, as many people as reasonably possible without the need for special adaptation.