Design System
Design System

Web Accessibility Overview

This design system aims to support Western's efforts in diversity and inclusion by ensuring web content is accessible for all users.

Western's digital content creators can support this mission by using components built into Western's themes, being aware of web accessibility guidelines and requirements, and adopting accessibility as an integral step of content development.

Learn more about Western's commitment to accessibility.

Like the design system, the accessibility documentation is a work in progress and may not cover all things accessibility. It does cover basic concepts that will make your digital content easier to use and understand, and we continue to build these resources out as needed.

Every design decision has the potential to include or exclude people.

Alistair Duggin
Accessibility Engineer for Apple

Take Web Accessibility Training

Western Basic Accessibility Training

Required training, ideal for content creators and editors. Covers basic accessibility practices in web, documents, and media.

Enroll in basic training

Western Advanced Accessibility Training

Ideal for web developers, covers HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and ARIA.

Enroll in advanced training

Explore Some Resources

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lines of code on a screen

Web Accessibility Guidelines

Western web creators will develop their content according to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0/2.1 and Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) 1.1.

WCAG 2.0 and WCAG 2.1

WCAG 2.1 is the current baseline W3C Recommendation for developing accessible web content based on four principles:

  1. Perceivable: users must be able to detect the content using a variety of senses.
  2. Operable: users must be able to navigate and use all functionality in web content.
  3. Understandable: users need web content that is readable and predictable.
  4. Robust: users can still access content, even if technologies update or change.

As of today, Western's official resolution states we must adhere to WCAG 2.0 as a bare minimum. However, we recommend meeting WCAG 2.1, as 2.1 is backward compatible and satisfies 2.0 criteria, in addition to new criteria added in 2018.

ARIA 1.1

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) provides a range of information to users about complex widgets and states of other interfaces.

Note: semantic HTML should be used instead of ARIA whenever possible.