Web accessibility is a set of best practices that make websites more useful for people with different types of abilities. Web internationalization includes practices that make content more appealing to people in different countries (and often, people who speak different languages than the primary language of the content).
On the surface, accessibility and internationalization seem like fundamentally different concepts — but there’s quite a bit of overlap. Here’s how an accessible website helps you reach potential customers across the world.
Let’s say that your website has a large amount of video content. Video is important to your brand: It’s how you showcase the features of each product while keeping potential customers engaged.
But if your videos are only available in one language, they’re not especially useful for reaching an international audience. You could re-record the narration in different languages, but a quicker (and potentially more effective) approach is to provide captions. After all, captions can be easily translated.
We’ve just stumbled onto one of the core concepts of web accessibility: When you provide text alternatives, people can change your content to suit their abilities and preferences. Captions are one of the most obvious examples, but here are a few more:
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), considered the international standards for digital accessibility, require text alternatives (in fact, it’s the very first requirement in the guidelines). And as we’ll discuss, following WCAG has other benefits for international businesses.
Related: International Web Accessibility Laws: An Overview
WCAG addresses four basic principles of accessibility: Content must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust (or POUR, for short). Read more about the POUR principles.
Robustness is especially important for internationalization. Essentially, you want your website to “play nice" with as many technologies as possible — that includes future technologies that haven’t been invented yet.
That’s crucial for international audiences for several reasons:
To create a robust website, you’ll need to develop content with clean code and a clear structure. WCAG can help you determine whether you’re meeting the mark.
Related: WCAG 2.1 Principles Explained: Robustness
Web accessibility and web internationalization are both about improving the user experience. However, there’s another reason to make accessibility part of your approach to internationalization: digital compliance.
Many countries have laws that require businesses to provide reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. Those laws often apply to online content. In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires digital accessibility, but doesn’t include technical criteria (though WCAG Level AA is generally considered adequate for compliance).
But in many other parts of the world, WCAG conformance is required. Laws that explicitly reference WCAG include:
At the Bureau of Internet Accessibility, we believe that the business benefits of digital accessibility are profound. Compliance shouldn’t be your primary reason for adopting an accessible mindset — but it’s still an important consideration.
Related: How to Check WCAG Compliance: A Quick Guide
According to the World Health Organization, worldwide, over a billion people have at least one disability. That number may be a low estimate: In the United States, an estimated 25% of adults have disabilities, and that percentage is expected to rise over the next several decades.
Statistics aside, it’s important to remember that accessibility affects everyone. Whether or not you live with a disability, you’ve certainly encountered websites that work better than others — and ultimately, WCAG reinforces great web design.
By following WCAG and fixing accessibility issues, you can build a stronger approach to web internationalization. Your efforts will make your content better for all users, regardless of how they browse the web.
To learn more about WCAG, get started with our Compliance Roadmap or test your content against WCAG Level A/AA with our free automated website scan.