26 – Accessibility Statement (Alfa)

Under the Swedish DOS Act, public sector and publicly funded organisations must publish an accessibility statement. It has to be findable and contain certain information to count. Equivalent duties apply across the EU through the Web Accessibility Directive and the European Accessibility Act.

What is tested?

• That the statement exists and can be found from the website
• That it states the degree of conformance: fully, partially or not compliant
• That it has an updated date
• That the date isn't too old: one year and two years are the thresholds the test reacts to

The test searches through a number of pages to find the statement.

How it affects the score

A missing statement gives the lowest score. One that exists but has no updated date lowers the score. So does a date more than a year old. The older the date, the bigger the penalty. A statement unchanged for two years is treated as out of date.

Running the test

python default.py -u https://example.com -t 26 -r

Settings

Worth knowing

The test can only judge what's machine-readable: that the statement exists, is marked up correctly and is dated. Whether the content matches reality is another question. A statement describing shortcomings that were fixed long ago is in practice as useless as none at all.

See also

• 18 – Accessibility (Pa11y)