What is Intranet Accessibility and why it should be your priority

Having an accessible intranet ensures your site content is fully accessible to everyone within your organisation, which is fundamental to creating a consistent experience for everyone and nurturing a connected and engaged workforce.

Accessibility refers to making sure your intranet and mobile app can be used by as many people as possible across your organisation.

This includes those with:

1. Impaired vision
2. Motor difficulties
3. Cognitive impairments or learning disabilities
4. Deafness or impaired hearing.

The UK Gov website states that “At least 1 in 5 people in the UK have a long term illness, impairment or disability. Many more have a temporary disability”.

Ensuring your intranet is accessible means your intranet functionality and content are accessible without barriers and by achieving this you are connecting your entire workforce and positively engaging with everyone that they are a valued employee. Every employee within your organisation should be able to easily access, navigate and consume your intranet content.

The key to creating a fully accessible intranet is understanding how to make your intranet accessible and where to go for help and advice.

Firstly, you need to consider a whole host of barriers to accessing your website, including those listed above, low vision, blindness, motor and cognitive, deafness or impaired hearing and employees with little or no tech skills.

The International Standards that exist for web accessibility are also applied to intranets. They are referred to as WCAG 2.0 or Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. They were originally created in 1999 and have since been updated regularly. The WCAG standards are rooted in four main principles:

1. Perceivable - Information must be perceivable to people using only one of their senses, so they understand all related content. For some of your users, this may mean primarily using visual sense or sound or touch.
2. Operable - End users must be able to interact with all webpage elements. For example your website should be easily navigable with just a keyboard or voice controls for non-mouse users
3. Understandable – End users must be able to understand web page content and functionality information
4. Robust – Your website must effectively communicate information to all users, including users of assistive technologies, and remain compatible with evolving technologies and user needs.

In addition to the four main WCAG principles there are additional standards which are referenced by levels of compliance. A, AA and AAA. Through being compliant with WCAG standards you can be confident that you are taking steps to make sure that your intranet is more accessible to everyone within your organisation.

Knowing where to start with accessibility and your path to compliance with international accessibility standards can be daunting, but here at Sorce we have partnered with UserWay to provide advanced technology , designed to address common WCAG accessibility issues.

If you would like to know more about how we can help with your intranet accessibility, please get in touch with Richard.frost@sorce.co.uk or book a demo.