Looking for a digitally accessible video player for your website that fully complies with the WCAG guidelines and EAA legislation? Get in touch — we’re happy to tell you more.
What do the WCAG guidelines and EAA legislation mean?
The WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) are international agreements on website accessibility. Level AA is considered the minimum standard organisations should meet. With the introduction of the European Accessibility Act (EAA), digital accessibility is now also mandatory for commercial organisations.
Among other things, this means that:
- your website is fully operable without a mouse;
- your content is understandable and visible;
- the technology used is compatible with assistive tools such as screen readers.
The videos on your website — and the video player you use — therefore also need to comply with the WCAG guidelines. But do they?
Audit results: video players assessed
Audit firm Proper Access examined nine commonly used video players, including ours, based on the WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines. Meeting these guidelines means content is genuinely usable for people with disabilities. The result: only three out of nine players meet the guidelines and are therefore properly usable.
Results per video player
Only the video players from OpenGemeenten, the Rijksoverheidsplayer, and Blue Billywig comply with the WCAG guidelines. Widely used video players such as YouTube and Vimeo do not.
Where does it go wrong?
The most common issue is the inability to operate the player using a keyboard. In addition, many video players don’t work properly with screen readers. Several of the non-compliant players also have issues with contrast and visibility.
Accessibility goes beyond guidelines
The WCAG guidelines are an important foundation for digital accessibility, but they don’t cover everything. For example, support for sign language isn’t a mandatory part of these guidelines, even though it adds significant value for people with hearing impairments.
In practice, only two of the researched video players support this functionality: the players from OpenGemeenten and Blue Billywig. This shows that, beyond simply meeting guidelines, there’s still room to further improve digital accessibility — especially for specific target groups.
Also important: Privacy
Many of the researched video players also use tracking cookies. From a privacy perspective, tracking cookies are undesirable: they allow users to be tracked after visiting your website. And if you use tracking cookies, you’re required to show a cookie notice for your video — yet another barrier for visitors.
