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Africa Commons

Summary

This report reflects the findings of a high-level assessment of Africa Commons platform for its conformance with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 (WCAG 2.1).

There are very few WCAG 2.1 compliance issues with the platform, and the few that are present are programmatic in nature and should be relatively easy to fix. However, creating an accessible platform is a constantly moving goalpost, so it is important to keep in mind that there are continual updates to the WCAG standards that may require more work in the future. Below are the most critical issues to focus on correcting to improve access for all potential users of the system.

Top 3 Issues:

  1. Color Contrast: The paramount issue with the platform is color contrast. There are a couple of repeated contrast violations across pages, as well as across page-specific violations. An easy fix is to ensure that the contrast between text and the background is 4.5:1 for regular text. Also note that placeholder text must also meet contrast.
  2. Compatibility: There are a few very minor issues with compatibility across all pages, and these are very minor issues that can be easily fixed. When authoring for ARIA be sure to reference the WAI-ARIA Best Practices from W3.
  3. Usability: Minor issues with usability were identified in the evaluation. Simple corrections can make a sizable difference.
    • The repeated periods in the Table of Contents for an individual result should be hidden from the screen reader.
    • There are multiple ways of implementing a dropdown menu based on the content and context, however, drop menus should follow appropriate ARIA implementation.