Wix has taken an updated approach to accessibility with their website builder and they’ve been proactive and so I’m on the wix.com/accessibility page and I’m going to go through it and provide my thoughts from a legal lens, in terms of is this helping with litigation and preventing demand letters and complaints being filed.
Let’s review some of their actions.
First, there’s a pioneering accessibility wizard, our wizard quickly scans your site to pinpoint accessibility issues and give you a step-by-step guide to make your website accessible to all.
My initial impression is that that seems like it’s claiming more than they can do because the the scans that are currently available you know they at best they flag 25% of the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria.
Wix also names accessibility features built into every site. This is what Squarespace, GoDaddy, and any other website builders should be doing Shopify this is what they should be doing they should be providing a way- a platform which has done everything possible to have accessibility, like- handed over on a silver platter to its customers and then the customers take it from there.
This is not to say that website builders can make a totally accessible website because they can’t but what they should be doing everything possible so you don’t just because you can’t make you know your website builder can’t automatically make everything accessible for the customer who’s then customizing the website.
They should have the components in place or the prompts in place to make it as accessible that’s possible out-of-the-box and then obviously you customize it.
So one thing here is full keyboard functionality. I love that this definitely comes up in in claims and so that’s that’s a good one to have.
Automatic DOM order and DOM stands for document object model and it says the the Dom order the DOM is automatically arranged so visitors who use keyboards and screen readers can navigate your site from left to right.
I would I would rather- it match I would rather they say it matches what is what is visually presented matches what is programmatically presented, but, you know, it’d be interesting to see how that how this plays out in practice, but it’s good that they’re considering it.
Site language definition that’s very very easy to do, it’s good that they have that in place.
Correct semantics, it’s good that they have semantics in place.
These last three though they are not typically found in litigation I don’t see those claims come up.
Smart focus ring so this is they’re referring to our focus indicator smart focus ring rings automatically appear when a keyboard is being used and feature dual colors so keyboard users can better navigate your site. This does occasionally come up in litigation.
I would be interested to see if you could change the colors to make sure that there’s an appropriate color contrast but that’s getting more advanced.
The next one is ARIA attributes built-in ARIA attributes provide enriched accessible user experience plus you can add custom attributes to apps and components you build yourself.
This, I would like to see this in practice as well this is more complex.
I would like to see them default to HTML where possible I understand that’s makes it more difficult but I would like to use I would like to use the bonus that HTML provides out-of-the-box but ARIA attributes are fine for custom components.
But more elaboration here would be nice but it is good that they’re providing labels.
Heading tags. Heading tags help users who do screen readers understand how your site is organized in order to present their content. True – it’s good that they’re considering it.
Alt text, again, good that they’ve considered it.
Skip to content and, of course, really all text and skip to content do come up as part of claims.
it’s good that they have those in place it’s good that they have the skeptic content in place that is something that customers want to have and so I like that they’re adding prompts for alt text.
And so that’s it as far as the accessibility features listed and there’s some guides and resources and then there is a way to hire an accessibility specialist.
So it says get a WIX professional to audit your site and make any necessary adjustments to ensure compliance with the WCAG 2.0 accessibility guidelines for your region.
Okay, again, like the way they’ve written this tells me that they don’t quite understand what they’re talking about.
The phrase, with the WCAG 2.0 accessibility guidelines for your region – that’s disjointed.
I do like that they have a feature request. I’d like to see how quickly they can implement accessibility features and then there’s accessibility templates, explore design designer made templates with built-in with accessibility features built-in.
So this is a good start, I don’t think it’s- I’m almost positive it’s not a 100% solution in the sense that they have taken care of everything out-of-the-box, everything is perfect as is and then it’s up to the end user- the WIX user to make it accessible I think there is more that they can do on their end, but this is just my initial impression.
I think it’s a good job so far there’s there are more things I would like to see considered there are more things I’d like to see them go through in detail they have provided more detail than anybody else I’ve seen any other website builder.
While it’s nice that they’ve gone to the level of detail of listing out nine things that they’ve done to create an accessible website out-of-the-box, I need to see this in practice.
And I would want to really look and see what they’ve done and talked to their team and I think there is improvement to be made but the good thing is they’re being proactive.
It doesn’t have to be perfect to start with they’re very fact that they’re working on it and they have an ability to ask for features is a very good start.