“Accessibility” for D365 Projects

Last year in a D365 implementation in public sector accessibility was one of the project requirements. That time it was something new to our D365 team. Here I am documenting my learning and hoping it will be helpful to someone have similar requirements.

What is accessibility?

You may have seen similar to one of these in your surroundings if not all.

In general products, systems, devices and facilities should be accessible to everyone. The term “accessibility” particularly refers to make things accessible by people with disabilities. This applies to software products as well.

Why accessibility is important?

One billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, experience some form of disability, and disability prevalence is higher for developing countries. One-fifth of the estimated global total, or between 110 million and 190 million people, experience significant disabilities…

In many countries, it is unlawful to discriminate against people because of their disability. Also there are requirements that systems and websites should be accessible in public sector, to ensure people with disabilities can use them.

What are accessibility standards and how to ensure those?

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a standard for individuals, businesses, and governments throughout the world. WCAG 2.0 was published on 11 December 2008 and the latest is WCAG 2.1 which was published on 5 June 2018. It is maintained and developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) process. WCAG 2.1 enhances WCAG 2.0. WCAG 2.0 is not depreciated but it is recommended to use the recent version.

Requirements of these standards are defined under 3 levels, for details please see URL in links section.

Level A: Minimum level
Level AA: To achieve this level A must be achieved, it has additional requirements.
Level AAA: The highest level to achieve in terms of accessibility standards. Obviously, the success criteria of level A and level AA are a prerequisite.

To achieve these standards usually testing organizations or consultants help by doing testing and highlighting areas of impoverishment. There are few commercial and free tools and browser add ons which can be used to start accessibility testing. D365 classical interface was meeting some requirements of accessibility standards but not all. It is improved and better in the Unified interface. Will share more details later.

Enjoy you 365 day 🙂