The relationship between free open source software (FOSS) and accessibility is more and more important. The EU Web Accessibility Directive (WAD) and more recently adopted the European Accessibility Act (EAA) have made it a priority. This article is based on the presentation I gave at the OpenUK London Meetup on Accessible Open Source #A11y this March.
When attending this year’s State of Open Con, US politics was a hot topic. People are clearly looking to reduce dependence on proprietary tools from US-owned corporations. In Europe, there is a growing effort to collaborate on alternatives. There is momentum behind building open, interoperable solutions. These tools should align with European standards, so accessibility will be part of solutions developed.
Building Accessibility into Open Source Communities
One in four people has a permanent disability, according to UK Disability Statistics. Everyone will experience situational or temporary impairments at some point. Accessibility isn’t just an extra feature—it’s essential for inclusion and usability. Open source projects thrive on community engagement, and making your code accessible helps with this.
Accessibility is a team sport. Everyone who touches a digital interface has a role (designers, developers, product owners, and QA testers). The W3C recently released the draft Accessibility Roles and Responsibilities Mapping (ARRM). This ARRM guidance supports embedding accessibility within digital teams.
If you aren’t an accessibility expert, you shouldn’t need to memorize all Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Success Criteria—but it’s important for everyone on a digital team to treat it as a shared responsibility. You want designers to care about the WCAG that applies to design, and the front-end engineers to worry about that stuff that they can control. Colour contrast is something visual designers should definitely care about.
Open source issue queues are a game changer for accessibility. Publicly available bug trackers allow users to search for known accessibility issues. People can also submit new reports, and engage in merit-based discussions about best practices. Open tracking systems reduce duplication of effort and create transparency around accessibility improvements.
Some projects tag accessibility-related bugs and align them with WCAG success criteria. This can help if you need to create an accessibility conformance report. We have been using this approach when building OpenACR reports for our clients.
Lowering Barriers to Entry in Open Source
Open source software offers a low-cost, high-impact way for students, professionals, and people on limited income to contribute. Developers can get free training materials and expert mentorship, by joining open source projects. Active community engagement helps people develop new skills and become accessibility advocates. Projects like Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla actively foster community participation. By encouraging new contributors to engage with accessibility work, everyone wins.
The open source model also fosters cooperative competition or co-opetition. Projects compete on features, but collaborate on standards and best practices. A great example is Funka’s We4Authors Cluster, which was funded by the European Commission. This project brought together CMS vendors to improve accessibility for content creators. Similarly, Drupal’s Proudly Found Elsewhere (PFE) initiative encourages the adoption of open source pieces of the CMS. By working with other projects like this, the community can share costs of maintaining accessibility.
The Future of Open Source and Accessibility
Many governments struggle with accessibility monitoring and compliance. This is particularly for organizations with a lot of digital content. The 2024 Web Almanac: Accessibility Chapter provides insights into European accessibility. It also provides much more specific data about how well UK and EU governments are meeting WCAG.
Measuring accessibility over time is key. The Web Almanac gives us an opportunity to see how effective government policy can be. It is also worth noting that the Web Almanac is an open project, and it is all open data available through Google’s BigQuery.
There are lots of open source accessibility tools to make this work easier. SimplA11yPDFCrawler, Sa11y, Editoria11y, NVDA, and Oobee are notable examples, but there are many more open source tools and resources that make it easier to advance digital inclusion.
To push accessibility forward, we need greater engagement from developers, designers, and policymakers. Governments must invest in enterprise-wide accessibility tools. We need more open tools for both organization-wide and government-wide monitoring. We need to see accessibility embedded into procurement and software development lifecycles.
Open source communities have a unique opportunity to lead the way in digital accessibility. Let’s find ways to work together to see our tools are truly open, inclusive, and usable for all.
Want to get involved? Test your favorite sites with Accessibility Insights, contribute to an open source project, or connect with accessibility experts in your field. Together, we can make open source software more accessible.
About the Author
Mike Gifford is CivicActions’ Open Standards & Practices Lead and a thought leader on open government, as well as digital accessibility and sustainability. He has worked with governments in North America and Europe, and spoken internationally. He is also a W3C Invited Expert and recognized authoring tool accessibility expert.
