Your website does not meet accessibility (WCAG) criteria - our developers advise whether to fix the current website or create an entirely new website

Thanks to accessibility additions and changes, your circle of web users will probably expand as well. For example, if you previously did not consider visually impaired users on your website, you now want to include a screen reader. Or, if you previously did not consider users who cannot use their hands (temporary or permanent trauma), you now want to add the possibility of using voice commands.

It is important to note that visual impairment is not only a permanent or congenital visual impairment but can affect us all at some point in our lives: temporary eye trauma or disease, as well as the deterioration of vision as we age. According to research, one in 12 men has some form of colour blindness. You can read about using accessible colours in web design in our previous blog post.

It depends on the web, but often making an existing web accessible tends to be more difficult from a development perspective than developing a new web. Why so? The developer has to "dismantle" the existing code and understand the work of the current components and, based on this, figure out if and how it is possible to add the desired accessibility there. The code is typically written by someone else and is often undocumented.

The project can be very time-consuming - the amount of time depends on how much accessibility support is available on the current web and how difficult it is to "dismantle" the existing code. Also, consider how easy or difficult it is to add new accessibility functionality to the existing website.

The previously conducted audit helps to plan the time consumption, which we discussed at the beginning of the article. Still, when adding to the existing website, unpleasant surprises may also appear that had yet to be planned in the volume estimate. For example, the website is 10-15 years old and outdated and has technical support difficulties.

Some components or code may not work or need to be rewritten to add the new accessibility support features you want. Before starting the development, we ask the customer to provide the already known information about what does not work with the current website to prevent surprises and save time.

As a result of the above, updating an existing website is often more expensive than developing a completely new and immediately accessible website. First, you need to do an audit, and it costs money. Then the cost of the project depends on how complex the web is, how much and what quality of accessibility support is already available on the web, what needs to be added, and how difficult the addition turns out to be.

In all likelihood, updating the front-end alone is not enough to improve the accessibility of the existing web. Still, it is also necessary to change the back-end developments and design. For more complex systems and websites, corresponding changes should be made by the partners with whom the subscriber's website is interfaced. For example, suppose the subscriber's website uses Google Maps or Pipedrive forms as the only solution. In that case, they should also meet accessibility requirements because the subscriber's development partner cannot change them himself.

TWN Web and TWN Blog

At TWN, accessibility has always been close to our hearts. We also offer our clients WCAG audits and web development services according to WCAG criteria. Therefore, our website and blog, which is also our business card, must meet the WCAG criteria.

Visually impaired people use screen readers to navigate the web and read text aloud, and our developer task was to make our website and blog accessible to screen readers. We changed the somewhat complicated structure of our page and the contrast of colours to comply with WCAG criteria and be screen reader friendly.

We also added appropriate notifications for screen readers to inform them of opening and closing menus and accordions. We also introduced additional translations for screen readers (which are not visible to the average user).

Developing a completely new and immediately accessible web is a more straightforward, convenient, and transparent solution for all parties involved. An analysis is done, and all desired accessibility functionalities are already agreed upon in the project's initial phase.

Developers don't have to start dissecting someone else's code (it may be poorly documented or has no documentation) or predicting whether or not the new desired functionality can be added to the old web (often, the reality becomes clear only during the work). When developing a new website from scratch, we can document all the developers' work in high quality and detail so that in the future it is crystal clear what was done.

The new website that complies with accessibility standards immediately considers many different user groups (e.g., in addition to ordinary users, visually impaired users, and users with temporary or permanent trauma). When developing a new website, it is possible to immediately calculate the time spent and the project's cost to the client.

It is difficult to develop if there is no preliminary analysis and it is not known exactly what the customer wants. There may be "moments of surprise" when developers test new approaches, functionalities or technologies and how well they support accessibility. Generally, these surprises can be caught already in the design phase.