A compliance score is not accessibility

The report announces a score. Ninety-two per cent, say. The figure reassures, it fits into a slide, it feels like a mark out of twenty. That is precisely the misunderstanding to clear up before commissioning the audit.

The score expresses the proportion of compliant criteria among those that apply. It says nothing about their relative importance, nor about the fact that a single failing criterion can break an entire journey.

What an audit measures, and against which reference

The assessment rests on the French general accessibility improvement reference, the national expression of the European standard EN 301 549, itself aligned with the international WCAG rules at level AA.

An auditor applies the criteria to a sample of pages: home, contact, legal notice, one page of each template, and the pages involved in a journey. Each criterion is compliant, non-compliant, or not applicable.

The number of applicable criteria therefore varies from one site to another. Comparing two scores drawn from two different scopes makes no sense — and yet that is what happens as soon as a figure exists.

The four failings that exclude the most people

• The keyboard. A journey that cannot be completed without a mouse excludes a share of users, and not only blind ones.
• Text alternatives. An informative image without an alternative makes the information vanish. A decorative image with a chatty alternative clutters the reading.
• Forms. An error flagged by colour alone, or an error message not tied to its field, makes correction impossible for anyone who cannot see the screen.
• Heading structure. A hierarchy set for text size rather than for the document’s outline removes the only way to move quickly through a long page.

These four families account for most of what genuinely prevents people from using a site. They are not the most expensive to fix.

Fixing ten minor criteria raises the score. Fixing the order form brings in a customer.

What the report must contain to be usable

• the exact scope: which pages, which journeys, which versions — and what was not looked at
• the non-compliant criteria, each with where it was observed and its effect on the user
• a ranking by severity of use, not by criterion number
• the remediation estimate, separating what belongs to content from what belongs to the template
• the elements of the accessibility statement, ready to publish

The last point is often missing, although it governs compliance with the declarative obligation. An audit delivered without the elements to publish leaves the company in breach on the part most easily observed.

Fixing in the right order

The order that comes naturally — working through the criteria by number — is the worst. Three passes work better, in this order.

• What blocks a journey. Ordering, registering, contacting, paying. While one of these tasks is impossible, the rest waits.
• What can be fixed in the template. A fix made once applies to every page: it is the best return in the whole exercise.
• What belongs to content. Alternatives, link labels, heading hierarchy. High volume, low difficulty, to be handled over time and built into the publishing process.

The third pass is the one never finished unless it enters production habits. A site fixed once decays at the rate of the publications that follow.

What the audit does not settle

You still need to know what you are supposed to comply with. Two regimes coexist in France, with two scopes and two authorities: it is probably not the RGAA that binds you.

It records a state at a date. It does not say whether the company falls under the Article 47 regime or the products-and-services accessibility regime — two different scopes, two sets of obligations, two supervising authorities. That qualification is made beforehand, and it determines what to ask for.

Common questions