Working agile to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance for a complex application

Challenge:

A large Australian telecommunications company approached the Centre for Inclusive Design (CfID) to review their gaming application both on desktop and mobile against WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards. The CfID team used a combination of automatic and manual testing to perform an initial review of the application, resulting in a 52% compliance score. The client then revised the desktop and mobile interface and sought to rectify the accessibility issues. During this period, the CfID team were available for consultation and supported with implementation. A secondary review was conducted which resulted in a 60% compliance score, which sits below accessibility standards and still challenges desktop and mobile users.

Solution:

The client then decided to pivot their attention to solely improving the accessibility of the desktop version. Due to the complexity of the application, the team at CfID and the client met to co-design a solution that would have the greatest opportunity to meet accessibility compliance. This agile approach included two sprint iterations, remediation checking, specialist advice provided throughout and final accessibility review to verify changes.

Impact:

By undertaking this iterative approach, the large Australian telecommunications company was rewarded with a desktop gaming application that was compliant to WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards. This is a massive improvement considering the initial low compliance score of 52%. The client mentioned that they were “very happy with the progress we made together with CFID over the past 6 weeks on our applications WCAG compliance, and it would be remiss of us not to provide glowing feedback on your team’s work. Your team’s subject matter expertise, willingness to get into the technical implementation details and tireless work ethic with prompt response to our teams inquires was a significant contributor to our uplift project”.