Museum Collections Online with Accessibility Principles 3 and 4: Understandable and Robust

This week will complete our review of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C®) technical standards set forth in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Version 2.1, Level AA.

Using the guidance and success criteria outlined by the WCAG, we’ll explore how “Principle 3: Understandable” and “Principle 4: Robust” can be applied to museum collections online as facilitated by the museum Collections Management System (CMS). As the DOJ has selected WCAG Version 2.1, Level AA as the public services standard, this series will use that version as a guidepost for discussing how to improve accessibility for museum collections online.

For more information on the WCAG and its application to collections online, please see our previous posts on Lucidea’s Think Clearly Blog: Accessibility Standards for Museum Collections Online, Museum Collections Online with Accessibility Principle 1: Perceivable and Museum Collections Online with Accessibility Principle 2: Operable.

Principle 3: Understandable

This principal offers guidance on how to support easily readable content and access to museum collections content and assets as published online by the museum CMS. Additionally, the collections online should be presented in an intuitive way where it’s easy to navigate and find the desired contents.

Readable: For text within the collections online web pages, object records, digital galleries, etc., to be readable and understandable.

• Language of Page and Language of Parts: Where the human (versus computer or coding) language can be programmatically determined for both the collections online landing pages as well as each section, passage, or field.

Predictable: For the apparatus of the collections online (with web pages and functionality contained therein) to operate in normal and predictable ways.

• On Focus: When an area of the collections online is receiving focus that it remains stationary in its currently display and does not change the context it was initially presented in.
• On Input: When users provide input via the collections online interface there’s no change of context unless that is the expected behavior. An acceptable example of an expected change in context based on user input is when a user interacts with the search area will expect to be taken to a search results page when the search is executed.
• Consistent Navigation: The navigation for the collections online is consistent throughout. When published by a proprietary CMS this is usually not an issue, but should be reviewed, especially if the database is homegrown or altered from an out of the box state.
• Consistent Identification: Repeated elements within the collections online presentation should share identical functionality. Similar, to the above, this should be reviewed when not using a proprietary CMS.

Input Assistance: Where user input mistakes can be avoided and corrected in areas such as the basic search, advanced search, and request areas.

• Error Identification: Any errors triggered within the collections online is both identified and described to the user in text.
• Labels or Instructions: Where user input is available, there should be text labels or instructions to support successful user interaction.
• Error Suggestion: When a user input error occurs then a suggestion for correction is provided. This is something to consider for searches within collections online.
• Error Prevention (Legal, Financial, Data): not applicable.

Principle 4: Robust

Museum content and in collections information must be understandable enough to be correctly interpreted by a wide variety of users—including assistive technologies online visitors may use to access the content.

Compatible: Ensuring the collections online website structure, navigation, functionality, etc., are compatible with current and future visitors and assistive technologies. Please note these criteria rely specifically on markup languages.

• Parsing: Clean coding is the goal here. Each element should have completed start and end tags, they’re nested correctly, there’s no duplicate attributes, IDs are unique, etc.
• Name, Role, Value: For forms (like a reference request form), links, and components generated by script can have their name and roles programmatically determined and values can be set by the user. Additionally, changes to these items are discernable and available to visitors and assistive technologies.
• Status Messages: Any status messages prompted within the collections online apparatus are programmatically discernable and presented to the user via assistive technologies without the message receiving focus.

Conclusion

This post concludes our review of the WCAG guidelines and indicators for successful (and accessible) online content. As you begin your accessibility journey, please go checkout the W3C®’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) website for even more helpful resources and tools.

Notice

Copyright of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C^®). This document includes materials copied or derived the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) website. Specific resources are credited below, in accordance with the W3C’s Using WAI Material: Permission to Use with Attribution policy and specifications for a W3C Document License.

Citation 1: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. W3C Recommendation 21 September 2023. Editors: Andrew Kirkpatrick (Adobe), Joshue O Connor (Invited Expert, InterAccess), Alastair Campbell (Nomensa), and Michael Cooper (W3C). Copyright © 2020-2023 World Wide Web Consortium. W3C^® liability, trademark, and document use rules apply.

Citation 2: Introduction to Understanding WCAG (Version 2.1). Updated 20 June 2023. Developed by Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) Participants (Co-Chairs: Alastair Campbell, Charles Adams, Rachael Bradley Montgomery. W3C Staff Contact: Michael Cooper). Copyright © 2023 World Wide Web Consortium. W3C^® liability, trademark, and document use rules apply.

The content was developed as part of the WAI-Core projects funded by U.S. Federal funds. The user interface was designed by the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) with contributions from Shadi Abou-Zahra, Steve Lee, and Shawn Lawton Henry as part of the WAI-Guide project, co-funded by the European Commission.

Citation 3: How to Meet WCAG (Quick Reference). Updated 12 Nov 2023. Version 3.5.1. Lead Developer: Eric Eggert (W3C). Project Lead: Shadi Abou-Zahra (W3C). Previous editors and developers: Gregg Vanderheiden, Loretta Guarino Reid, Ben Caldwell, Shawn Lawton Henry, Gez Lemon. Copyright © 2023 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio, Beihang) Usage policies apply.

The 2023 redesign was developed by the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG), with support from the WAI-DEV project, a project of the European Commission IST Programme.