Introduction
As of June 30, 2020, part of the learner experience of your platform meets the requirements to be compliant with the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.1, the U.S. Section 508 Standards of the Federal Rehabilitation Act in terms of accessibility and the European EN 301 549 V3.1.1 (Accessibility Requirements for ICT products and services), opening the e-learning experience to everybody.
Docebo has begun a journey aimed at providing all of your users with equal opportunities, making all of them able to access public and online information, and removing any form of discrimination.
Beyond satisfying legal requirements, an accessible platform makes the learning experience available to a wider, more inclusive audience, broadening your horizon to new learning opportunities and content.
This article provides an overview of what accessibility means, how it has been implemented in your platform, and what you have to do to align with the new standard.
Please note that accessibility is available for theme 7.0 only.
What is Software Accessibility?
Software is accessible when it can be used by anyone, in any condition, and in any situation. Accessibility is the key to making software usable not only when there is a permanent impairment, but also when this condition is temporary (for example, a broken arm or a temporary sight problem), the consequence of aging, or of a specific event. When software is accessible, users are able to access the content being presented, even when it is not perceivable by all of the senses, to operate and interact with it through the user interface.
What are the Advantages of an Accessible Platform?
An accessible platform is not just a matter of compliance, it’s a matter of making your training fully available to all of your learners, independently of their health conditions, impairment, or age. It means involving everybody in your learning program, nobody excluded.
How Does Accessibility Impact?
Audience
Your platform is accessible from the learner’s point of view. We concentrated on the learner experience since learners represent the majority of our users. The compliance on accessibility has been reached in the following areas of your desktop platform:
Registration and Platform Policies
- Login page
- Self-registration page
- Reset Password page
- Legal agreements: Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Terms & Condition
Layout
- Platform header, including the global search box and the related quick results window, the user menu, and the notifications and gamification panels
- Footer
Built-In Pages
- The My Courses and Learning Plans page
- The Course Catalog page
- The All Channels page
- The My Channel page
- Any Single Channel page
- The Latest Content page
- The My Skills page
- The My Profile area
- The area displaying the plan content when clicking on the What’s Included button of the Subscription Plan page
- The Results page of the Global Search
Widgets
In addition, the following widgets are compliant with the platform accessibility standard:
- Courses and learning plans
- Catalogs
- Channels
Please note that the following elements and functionalities are not included in this list:
- all of the filters included in the pages and in the widgets listed in this chapter are included, except for date pickers in time frame filters (such as calendars)
- the calendar display mode view in the Course Catalog widget and page
- the Ask the Expert panels
- the Share Content panel
- the Add to Playlist panel
At the moment, we are not planning to make the Admin experience accessible too. Please refer to the Docebo Accessibility Conformance Report for further details on the accessible areas and the criteria Docebo satisfies.
Look & Feel and User Experience
The learner user interface of your platform basically looks the same as before, it has not gone through radical changes, and, for sure, you are able to use it as usual without retraining. We have worked hard to make this big change as smooth as possible for users, while a lot has been reworked under the hood. Here are the main changes you will notice:
- Consistency. The position and the behavior of the page elements composing the areas impacted by accessibility have been aligned to keep consistency throughout the areas, easing user navigation. As an example, the platform logo is now always displayed on the left side of the header, and the actions called by the action bar (gamification panel, Help Center, notification center) always open a right panel.
- Forms. The login, self-registration, and password reset forms have been redesigned by keeping consistent and uniform spaces in order to group related content.
- Visible Focus. Since the platform can be navigated with keyboards, the visible focus for keyboard navigation has a dedicated style, created on purpose.
- Labels. The labels used in the accessible areas of the platform have been enhanced to provide better navigation guidance. The mandatory fields are now explicitly identified with the Required label, and a more detailed error messaging system helps in better understanding what is going wrong, also thanks to the error identification with a graphic symbol. The labels including links to external websites are clearly identified with the visible focus.
- Password Management. It is now possible to view or hide the password while typing it using the eye and barred eye icons at the end of the password field. When typing a password, a guidance system under the password fields will help in satisfying the password requirements set in the platform by listing what you need to do to set a proper password.
- Tooltips. All of the interactive elements now have a tooltip, readable by screen readers.
- Breadcrumb. The breadcrumb navigation has been completely redesigned reducing the number of clicks needed to go back to the previous steps of the platform navigation.
- Snackbars. The layout of snackbars has been redesigned, and in case more than one snackbar is displayed, they are piled up, so that they are all visible.
Keyboard Navigation
The accessible areas of the learner experience (listed in the Audience section of this chapter) are available for keyboard navigation so that users can navigate those areas of the learner interface by using tabs and shortcuts.
Screen Readers
Learners can navigate the accessible areas of the learner experience (listed in the Audience section of this chapter) and interact with them via screen reader. Docebo supports NVDA and JAWS on Microsoft Windows, with Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
Zoom
The interface of the accessible areas of the learner experience (listed in the Audience section of this chapter) has a responsive design allowing learners to zoom the user interface up to 400% without loss of information or functionality, and without requiring scrolling in two dimensions.
Content
Remember that you, as the Superadmin, are responsible for making sure that the content you and your users publish in your platform (courses, training material, assets uploaded through Discover, Coach & Share, including captions) is accessible. Docebo does not execute any check on the uploaded content, as well as on the content available in Docebo Content and Docebo Discover.
Skip to Main Content
The users of assistive technology can take advantage of the skip to main content functionality throughout the learner experience to quickly reach the main content of the page, bypassing other elements such as the logo, search areas, and header buttons.
Find out more about how to create accessible content and how to configure an accessible interface.