Showing papers on "Web accessibility published in 2021"

Evaluating the accessibility of higher education institution websites in the State of Kuwait: empirical evidence

Abstract: The objective of this study is to evaluate the current state of accessibility of higher education institution websites in the State of Kuwait. Using a quantitative approach, websites of higher education institutions were evaluated for their conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) standard. A total of 41 higher education homepages and college landing pages were evaluated. The following software conformance tools and metrics were used: AChecker, Total Validator, WAVE and HTML/CSS/ARIA. The evaluation was followed by a systematic analysis of the results, a comparison to other areas of accessibility research, and putting forth a set of recommendations for the improvement in higher education website accessibility. None of the higher education websites fully conformed to the WCAG 2.0 Level A standard across all tools used. The lowest ranking pages (24% of all pages) had an error rate above 35% across all aspects of the WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The majority of errors, at both WCAG 2.0 levels A and AA, fell under the perceivable criteria. Overall, the analysis suggested that accessibility was not accounted for during the website development and that careful re-design and repair of current issues should be a top priority. There is an urgent need to solve accessibility violations in higher education institution websites in Kuwait to support people with disabilities. Educational institutions should develop and enforce policies and laws as well as increase awareness of the WCAG standard amongst IT managers and developers. The institutions should also invest in their developers’ accessibility training and research as well as account for routine reviews of their web pages by people with disabilities and experts.

Web accessibility evaluation of top-ranking university Web sites in Spain, Chile and Mexico

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the web accessibility of home pages of universities in Spain, Chile and Mexico. The sample used in this study was the 15 top universities listed in the ranking Webometrics. The study has been carried out using automatic tools in order to analyze the level of compliance with the WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The results reveal that the selected Web sites have barriers of access to information and that these difficulties are even greater in the case of those who make use of assistive technology. Users of the analyzed Web sites can encounter difficulties mainly with the perception of information and with navigating the site, just as previous studies of web accessibility have shown. This paper concludes that the 3 analyzed countries show low levels of web accessibility on the selected Web sites, proving that there still exist many shortcomings with regard to meeting the regulation and respecting the fundamental rights of all people.

Evaluating the accessibility of public health websites: An exploratory cross-country study.

Abstract: Public health websites are regarded as official references that citizens of any country rely on for domestic and individual health affairs. For people with disabilities, public health resources are often of greater importance; they additionally provide disability context-specific information. However, to leverage the benefits of such resources for the widest demographic groups, Web accessibility requirements should be met at an acceptable level (e.g., WCAG 2.0, Level AA). This study evaluates the accessibility of a number of public health websites from 25 countries. The choice of the selected websites is determined by the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak in the corresponding countries and their rank as of late April, 2020. Ultimately, this study aims at shedding light on the current situation of accessibility to health information and pinpointing the aspects where accessibility to information falls short in public health websites. Using different evaluation tools, the overall results show that the vast majority of public health websites, of a number of different countries, still have many critical accessibility barriers, especially with regards to the perception of information and operability of the interface items. The findings of this study suggest a need for major efforts toward ensuring accessible public health resources in most of the evaluated websites. As this pattern has repeatedly occurred in many relevant studies in different parts of the world, legislation along with educating Web developers regarding Web accessibility requirements and universal design principles become an urgent necessity.

A serious game to improve engagement with web accessibility guidelines

Abstract: Designers are often faced with the challenge of following web accessibility guidelines that are complex and ambiguous, and therefore hard to use. This is evidenced by the low percentage of public websites that comply fully with web accessibility standards worldwide. Lack of engagement among designers to follow established web accessibility guidelines is often accounted for this issue. In this paper, we address designers’ lack of engagement through a serious game called GATE which is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). We followed a User-Centred approach by identifying user types of designers through an online survey. We then mapped these user types and the WCAG to relevant game mechanics. The resulting game was evaluated with designers for its perceived effectiveness, user engagement, and user satisfaction using a mixed methods approach. Our results demonstrate the potential of GATE which offers designers an innovative and engaging solution towards the wider adoption of web accessibility guidelines

Lexical Simplification System to Improve Web Accessibility

Abstract: People with intellectual, language and learning disabilities face accessibility barriers when reading texts with complex words. Following accessibility guidelines, complex words can be identified, and easy synonyms and definitions can be provided for them as reading aids. To offer support to these reading aids, a lexical simplification system for Spanish has been developed and is presented in this article. The system covers the complex word identification (CWI) task and offers replacement candidates with the substitute generation and selection (SG/SS) task. These tasks have followed machine learning techniques and contextual embeddings using Easy Reading and Plain Language resources, such as dictionaries and corpora. Additionally, due to the polysemy present in the language, the system provides definitions for complex words, which are disambiguated by a rule-based method supported by a state-of-the-art embedding resource. This system is integrated into a web system that provides an easy way to improve the readability and comprehension of Spanish texts. The results obtained are satisfactory; in the CWI task, better results were obtained than with other systems that used the same dataset. The SG/SS task results are comparable to similar works in the English language and provide a solid starting point to improve this task for the Spanish language. Finally, the results of the disambiguation process evaluation were good when evaluated by a linguistic expert. These findings represent an additional advancement in the lexical simplification of texts in Spanish and in a generic domain using easy-to-read resources, among others, to provide systematic support to compliance with accessibility guidelines.

Web accessibility investigation of Slovenian municipalities’ websites before and after the adoption of European Standard EN 301 549

Abstract: Digitalization and technological innovations provide many benefits for citizens worldwide, increasing the quality of life in several ways, including by enhancing access to information. However, people with disabilities can face challenges when retrieving online information as they often use assistive technologies that might not be fully supported by web pages. Municipalities’ websites are an important source of information for all citizens, regardless of their individual characteristics. To be able to support all citizens’ needs, several standards provide support for web developers. One of the standards is “Standard EN 301 549–Accessibility requirements suitable for public procurement of ICT products and services” in Europe. This study addresses the accessibility of public government services, more specifically municipalities’ websites, where there are still accessibility challenges. With a systematic literature review, we found no studies that would analyze the government web pages’ compliance with Standard EN 301 549. Therefore, this research had two main research goals: (1) to verify whether the websites of Slovenian municipalities were compliant with the Standard EN 301 549 in the years 2017 and 2018, and (2) to compare the results before and after the adoption of Standard EN 301 549 in Slovenia. The answers to the research questions were obtained with an accessibility evaluation of 189 Slovenian municipalities’ websites. The results, based on a descriptive analysis, indicate that, in 2017, none of the evaluated websites were fully compliant with the web content requirements of Standard EN 301 549, while at the end of 2018, 62 websites (33%) were fully compliant with the aforementioned standard. Furthermore, the results from an extended statistical analysis indicate improvement in websites standard compliance in 2018, even significant improvement for some web requirements after the adoption of the standard. A secondary contribution of this research is twofold: (1) a detailed presentation of the accessibility evaluation procedure and (2) its application on a specific domain (government domain) and in a specific geographical area (Slovenia). The same procedure could be applied to other domains and other countries around Europe (or even around the world in case Standard EN 301 549 is replaced with a relevant accessibility standard that applies to the chosen area of research).

COVID-19 highlights the issues facing blind and visually impaired people in accessing data on the web

Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic, dissemination of data on the web has been vital in shaping the public's response. We postulated the increased prominence of data might have exacerbated the accessibility gap for the Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI) community and exposed new inequities. We discuss findings from a survey (n=127) on data accessibility followed by a contextual inquiry (n=12) of BVI people conducted between June and September 2020. 94% of survey respondents had concerns about accessing accurate COVID-19 data in a timely manner. Participants described how they encountered broad inaccessibility at early onset of the pandemic, and how advocacy efforts and complimenting their access with a wide range of sources helped fulfill their needs. By examining how BVI users interact with accessible COVID-19 data dashboards, we observed the effect of data literacy, confidence, and modality preferences on user strategies and takeaways. Our observations during this critical period provide an understanding of the impact access or inaccess has on the BVI community in a time of crisis and important implications for improving the technologies and modalities available to disseminate data-driven information accessibly on the web.

Compliance of accessibility in tourism websites: a pledge towards disability

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the US states and territories’ official tourism information websites based on the Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) and Section 508 guidelines to identify the compliance of websites towards disabilities policies and their behaviour pattern.,The official tourism websites of 57 states and territories were analysed through the TAW tool for WCAG 2.0 and AChecker for Section 508. Cluster analysis was used to produce a group of websites underlying the accessibility issues obtained from the online tool to understand the common pattern of behaviour.,The result revealed that websites have serious and significant accessibility issues underlying the prescribed guidelines that would interfere with the use of the website by disabled people. The main issues that make the website least accessible focussed on the following guideline of WCAG 2.0: compatible, navigable, text alternative, distinguishable and adaptable.,The empirical results provide the US states and territories’ tourism authority to better understand web accessibility in their websites and its impact on disabled people.,As the web plays an important role in individual lives, this study highlights the accessibility issues which need immediately focussed and technically planned actions from the respective states and territories to ensure that designed web content should communicate effectively and universally.

United by Hope, Divided by Access: Country Mapping of COVID-19 Information Accessibility and Its Consequences on Pandemic Eradication

Abstract: Many government websites and mobile content are inaccessible for people with vision, hearing, cognitive, and motor impairments. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted these disparities when health authority website information, critical in providing resources for curbing the spread of the virus, remained inaccessible for numerous disabled populations. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines provide comparatively universally accepted guidelines for website accessibility. We utilized these parameters to examine the number of countries with or without accessible health authority websites. The resulting data indicate a dearth of countries with websites accessible for persons with disabilities. Methods of information dissemination must take into consideration individuals with disabilities, particularly in times of global health crises.

Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Web Accessibility: Digital Equity for Hispanic Students With Disabilities in the 21st Century:

Abstract: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandates that all Title IV-participating institutions of higher education publish web accessible websites for students with disabilities. This study sought...

How diverse is hotel website accessibility? A study in the central region of Portugal using web diagnostic tools:

Abstract: Accessible tourism is a very important growth market that should not be ignored by the tourism industry, not only due to legal obligations and social responsibility but also because of business opp...

WCAG4All, a tool for making web accessibility rules accessible

Abstract: Nowadays, web accessibility is recognized as a fundamental right of people with disabilities. But imposing accessibility by law is not enough: the main problem is the lack of a widespread culture of accessibility among webmasters that often do not know how to answer to accessibility requirements and what must be done to develop accessible web sites. Moreover, accessibility guidelines are legal documents that are not accessible to web developers. WCAG4A11 is a tool that helps them to understand what are the aspects that must be considered during the development process.

Detecting and localizing keyboard accessibility failures in web applications

Abstract: The keyboard is the most universally supported input method operable by people with disabilities. Yet, many popular websites lack keyboard accessible mechanism, which could cause failures that make the website unusable. In this paper, we present a novel approach for automatically detecting and localizing keyboard accessibility failures in web applications. Our extensive evaluation of our technique on real world web pages showed that our technique was able to detect keyboard failures in web applications with high precision and recall and was able to accurately identify the underlying elements in the web pages that led to the observed problems.

15 Years of Stanca Act: Are Italian Public universities websites accessible?

Abstract: With the increasing spread and usage of Internet technologies, the challenge of ensuring Web accessibility for all, including anyone with a form of disability, has become an hot issue, pursued both by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and by governments in different countries. In particular, W3C has developed technical Web accessibility guidelines (WCAG), while governments have legally addressed the problem, by emanating specific laws and policies. In Italy, the Stanca Act, a law regulating the design and creation of governmental and public sector websites, recently updated according to last WCAG 2.1 was enacted in 2004. To analyze its impact, this paper presents a study about the accessibility of Italian public universities websites, by particularly analyzing their conformance to the Stanca Act. The reported analysis shows that, despite that the Stanca act dates back 15 years ago, Italian public universities are still struggling to satisfy all its requirements.

Accessible cyber security : the next frontier?

Abstract: Researchers became aware of the need to pay attention to the usability of cyber security towards the end of the 20th century. This need is widely embraced now, by both academia and industry, as it has become clear that users are a very important link in the security perimeter of organisations. Two decades later, I will make the case for the inclusion and importance of a third dimension of human-centred security, that of accessibility. I will argue that technical measures, usability and accessibility should be equally important considerations during the design of security systems. Unless we do this, we risk ignoring the needs of vast swathes of the population with a range of disabilities. For many of these, security measures are often exasperatingly inaccessible. This talk is a call to action to the community of human-centred security researchers, all of whom have already made huge strides in improving the usability of security mechanisms.

Semantic Web Accessibility Testing via Hierarchical Visual Analysis

Abstract: Web accessibility, the design of web apps to be usable by users with disabilities, impacts millions of people around the globe. Although accessibility has traditionally been a marginal afterthought that is often ignored in many software products, it is increasingly becoming a legal requirement that must be satisfied. While some web accessibility testing tools exist, most only perform rudimentary syntactical checks that do not assess the more important high-level semantic aspects that users with disabilities rely on. Accordingly, assessing web accessibility has largely remained a laborious manual process requiring human input. In this paper, we propose an approach, called AxeRay, that infers semantic groupings of various regions of a web page and their semantic roles. We evaluate our approach on 30 real-world websites and assess the accuracy of semantic inference as well as the ability to detect accessibility failures. The results show that AxeRay achieves, on average, an F-measure of 87% for inferring semantic groupings, and is able to detect accessibility failures with 85% accuracy.

Web Accessibility of the Top Research-Intensive Universities in the UK:

Abstract: Although the web accessibility of universities around the world is well documented, much remains unknown about this aspect of higher education institutions in the UK. Using three automated web acce...

Diversity of Web accessibility in tourism: Evidence based on a literature review

Abstract: BACKGROUND: In the tourism industry, people with disabilities (PwD) are frequently excluded from certain activities. The Internet is one of the most used information sources for planning tourism trips. However, the level of accessibility of information disseminated by the tourism industry through websites is still very low. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to explore the existence of diversity in Web accessibility in the tourism industry. METHODS: A systematic literature review method was used for the identification, selection, and evaluation of the published research on Web accessibility in the tourism industry. A set of 40 papers obtained from relevant scientific databases, and complemented with a snowballing effect, was synthesized and analyzed. RESULTS: Low levels of diversity of Web accessibility were found in the different tourism activities analyzed. The majority of studies published in this field are relatively recent and both manual and automated methods were employed. Web accessibility failures were mainly related to lack of connectivity with assistive technologies, complex layout, and navigation difficulties. CONCLUSION: The results obtained in this systematic literature review provide important contributions to increase knowledge of Web accessibility in the tourism industry. Moreover, practical and theoretical contributions can help Web developers creating more accessible tourism websites.

Accessibility of university websites worldwide: a systematic literature review

Abstract: The identity and institutional image of universities are presented to the world through their websites. On their websites, universities publish their academic offerings, their mission, their vision, their academic objectives, their achievements, their regulations, their news and all their university work. Hence, the importance of university websites is accessible. The accessibility of university websites has been evaluated several times in the past, but there is no work that has summarized all the evaluations performed to provide a general overview of the situation. Therefore, in this research we have performed a systematic literature review (SLR) to consolidate, analyze, synthesize and interpret the accessibility results of university websites published in 42 papers that have been selected for this study. The methodology used in this SLR was that proposed in Kitchenham's guidelines, which includes three stages: planning the review, conducting the review and reporting the review. The results present the analysis and synthesis of the evaluations of 9,140 universities in 67 countries. Of these, 38,416 web pages, 91,421 YouTube videos and 28,395 PDF documents were evaluated. Manual methods, methods with automatic tools and the combination of both methods were used for the evaluation. Most websites were evaluated using the ISO/IEC 40500:2012 and Section 508 standards. The accessibility guidelines most commonly violated in the evaluations were: adaptable, compatible, distinguishable, input assistance, keyboard accessible, navigable, predictable, readable and text alternatives. In conclusion, the university websites, YouTube videos and PDF documents analyzed in the 42 papers present important accessibility problems. The main contribution of this SLR is the consolidation of the results of the 42 studies selected to determine the findings and trends in the accessibility of university websites around the world.

Monitoring Systems for Checking Websites on Accessibility

Abstract: Web accessibility monitoring systems support users in checking entire websites for accessibility issues. Although these tools can only check the compliance with some of the many success criteria of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they can assist quality assurance personnel, web administrators and web authors to discover hotspots of barriers and overlooked accessibility issues in a continuous manner. These tools should be effective in identifying accessibility issues. Furthermore, they should motivate users, as this promotes employee productivity and increases interest in accessibility in general. In a comparative study, we applied four commercial monitoring systems on two of the Stuttgart Media University’s websites. The tools are: (1) The Accessibility module of Siteimprove from Siteimprove, (2) Pope Tech from Pope Tech, (3) WorldSpace Comply (now called axe Monitor) from Deque, and (4) ARC Monitoring from The Paciello Group. The criteria catalogue consists of functional criteria that we gleaned from literature and user experience criteria based on the User Experience Questionnaire. Based on a focus group consisting of experts of Stuttgart Media University, we derived individual weights for the criteria. The functional evaluation criteria are: Coverage of the website and the guidelines, completeness, correctness, support in locating errors, support for manual checks, degree of implementing gamification patterns, support for various input and report formats, and methodological support for the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology 1.0 and for the German procurement law for public authorities "Barrierefreie Informationstechnik-Verordnung" 2.0. For determination of the user experience criteria, we conducted exploratory think-aloud user tests (n=15) using a coaching approach. Every participant tested all tools for 15 minutes (within-subject design). The participants completed post-test questionnaires, including the User Experience Questionnaire. According to our results, Siteimprove turned out to be the best tool for our purposes.

Disabilities and the Digital Divide: Assessing Web Accessibility, Readability, and Mobility of Popular Health Websites.

Abstract: With recognition of (1) unmet health information needs of persons with disabilities; and (2) anticipated growth of the persons with disabilities population, we seek to better understand the relative general accessibility of health information on popular, highly ranked health websites. That is, instead of examining the efficacy and impact of specific types of health message appeals, the present investigation assesses the functional performance of specific content platforms of health websites. We examine the components of accessing and understanding health information through the lens of web and language accessibility, readability, and mobility. A total of 139 health-focused websites were randomly sampled from the Alexa® "Top Sites" global ranking system which uses web traffic data to rank the most popular websites. The sample was processed using computer aided software (e.g., WEB AIM, Web FX & Google Test My Site.) We found 91.3% of sampled home pages had detectable accessibility failures. The most common accessibility failures were low contrast, empty links, missing ALT text, empty buttons, and missing form labels. Most websites offered neither an accessibility policy statement nor an option for automated language translation service, likely impacting those with limited English proficiency (LEP). The implications for these findings are reviewed with discussion and limitations provided.

Government website accessibility: a cross-country analysis of G7 and BRICS countries

Abstract: The Internet has revolutionized how users are able to work and gather information In modern world, information is available on a mouse click This is all possible due to the huge gamut of information available on the web While websites are designed to be informative, accessibility is an important criterion that is overlooked during website design This paper makes the following contributions: (1) The accessibility of the home page of government websites of Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies of the world including the USA, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada as well as Group of BRICS countries which includes five major emerging economies of the world including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa has been analyzed (2) The results of G7 government website accessibility analysis have been compared with that of BRICS countries and further processed to examine the findings Group-wise, country-wise, ministry-wise and WCAG Principle-wise (3) Major flaws in the existing website designs have been identified and recommendations for improvement in the government websites have been given The paper reveals that BRICS countries are not behind in terms of compliance of WCAG guidelines related to the accessibility of websites The major flaws in compliance with guidelines were associated with robustness, which can be overcome by making websites more compatible with different devices and adopting the suggested measures

The State of Web Accessibility for tourists with disabilities: a comparative study between different tourism supply agents.

Abstract: PURPOSE This study intends to examine the web accessibility of three tourism supply agents (hotels, travel agents and museums). The results obtained contribute to observing whether there are differences in levels of web accessibility among these tourism supply agents and, based on the problems identified, suggest strategies to overcome these problems. METHODS To evaluate the level of web accessibility of tourism supply agents, two automatic online tools (AccessMonitor and TAW), which consider Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), version 2.0, were used. To identify differences among the supply tourism agents in terms of the level of web accessibility, statistical tests (ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis) were used. RESULTS All the tourism supply agents analysed reveal considerable problems related to web accessibility. The perceivable and robust principles are the two principles of WGAG 2.0 with the greatest number of failures. However, differences among the supply agents analysed are observed. Museums present the highest level of web accessibility, while travel agents have the lowest. Therefore, it is necessary to implement improvements in tourism websites to overcome informational constraints that many people with disabilities (PwD) face in tourism activities. CONCLUSIONS Due to the central role of the Internet for people with and without disabilities, this study highlights barriers that should be eliminated to facilitate the travel decision-making process, especially for PwD. Consequently, it can contribute to a greater number of people being able to participate in tourism activities, improving their well-being and rehabilitation.Implications for rehabilitationThe participation in tourism activities contributes to improve health, quality-of-life and well-being of all people.For people with disabilities (PwD) to be able to travel, without constraints, access to online information needs to be provided.The identification of the level of web accessibility of tourism supply agents provides important guidelines to improve the websites, facilitating the travel tourism planning of PwD.If informational barriers to access tourism activities are eliminated, the participation of PwD in tourism activities will tend to increase, and consequently improvements in their well-being, health and rehabilitation will happen.

COVID-19 Vaccine Website Accessibility Dashboard

Abstract: Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated historical inequities for people with disabilities. This includes barriers in accessing online information and healthcare appointment websites, which were brought to the foreground during the vaccine rollout and registration process. Methods: The Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center created a COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard, which compiled COVID-19 information and vaccine registration web pages from 56 states and territories in the United States (U.S.) from March 30 through April 5, 2021 and analyzed accessibility using WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE). This tool identifies website accessibility barriers, including insufficient contrast, alternative text, unlabeled buttons, total number of errors, and error density. COVID-19 information and vaccine registration web pages were ranked and grouped into three groups by number of errors, creating comparisons between states on accessibility barriers for people with disabilities. Findings: All 56 U.S states and territories had COVID-19 information web pages and 29 states had centralized state vaccine registration web pages. Total errors, error density, and alert data were utilized to generate accessibility scores for each web page, the median score was 259 (range=14 to 536 and IQR=237) for information pages, and 146 (range=10 to 281 and IQR=105) for state registration pages. Interpretation: These results highlight the barriers that people with disabilities may encounter when accessing information and registering for the COVID-19 vaccine, which underscore inequities in the pandemic response for the disability community and elevate the need to prioritize accessibility of public health information. Funding: American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) Declaration of Interest: All authors declare no competing interests.

Creating a Virtual Reality OER Application to Teach Web Accessibility

Abstract: Awareness of web accessibility issues is necessary for, amongst other things, good website design. Good website design can mean the difference between disabled users being able to access the website content, or not. This paper describes the impact of a student-led project to develop a VR application, as an Open Education Resource (OER), to increase users’ knowledge and awareness of accessibility. An evaluation for the intervention delivered by the VR application was conducted, according to which, the VR application generally increased knowledge and awareness of web accessibility, but also had a negative impact on some users. The project targetted a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) class taught at the first Sino-foreign higher education institution, University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC). UNNC has already been involved in research into flipped classrooms, technology-enhanced teaching, and the development of several OERs. This paper introduces the background, motivation and objectives, design, and specification of the VR application. The impact of the application on users is evaluated, and some possible future work is discussed.

Let's put standardisation in practice: accessibility services and interaction

Abstract: Quality is a subjective attribute. For media accessibility, quality is an agreed benchmark issued by a standardisation agency. The context of work on media accessibility in standardisation agencies is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), wherein article 9.2 requests States Parties to take appropriate measures, among others “To develop, promulgate and monitor the implementation of minimum standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services open or provided to the public”. Meeting CRPD requirements has led to many international standardisation agencies to actively produce technical requirements towards accessibility, both for physical and digital/online environments. Technology is developing at a fast pace to produce new interactions, which turn into new communication barriers, some of which might be avoidable. Looking at recommendations from some accessibility standards at the design stage could solve many issues and help towards native accessible technology.This article looks at existing standards related to accessibility and media communication. The first part of the article looks at different standardisation agencies and the need to produce harmonised standards for accessibility at IEC, ITU, ISO and W3C. The second part of the article outlines how standards are produced and implemented at a European level by the European Standardisation Organisations (CEN, CENELEC and ETSI). It then lists existing standards for each media accessibility service: subtitling, audio description, audio subtitling and sign language. Mention is made of Easy to Read as a new emerging accessibility modality. The final part of the article will provide conclusions and directions for further research.