Accessibility Services

Tieto provides accessibility consulting, software development support, and auditing services to help teams and clients build accessible digital products. Our approach integrates accessibility into every project role—from requirements engineering and design to development and testing—ensuring compliance with standards like WCAG. We also offer both quick and extensive audits to identify accessibility barriers and recommend effective remediation actions.

Accessibility Consulting

Tieto’s accessibility professionals support internal teams and clients to build up their accessibility knowledge and expertise. Range of services:

  • Consult a specific project or team on accessibility requirements and best practices.
  • Accessibility Workshops (can be tailored to specific audiences like “UI/UX designers” or “Web Developers”)
  • Writing the accessibility statement for a website or native app

Accessible Software Development

In our software development projects, we integrate accessibility from the start. This means, that each role addresses accessibility proactively:

Requirements Engineer

  • Understand and document standards: Become familiar with accessibility guidelines like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and incorporate them into non-functional requirements.
  • Incorporate user needs: Engage with users with disabilities to understand their needs and ensure the requirements address real-world challenges.
  • Define testable criteria: Specify clear, measurable requirements for accessibility that can be tested later, such as keyboard-only navigation and color contrast ratios.

Designer

  • Apply inclusive design principles: Design for a wide range of users by considering different devices, input methods, and assistive technologies.
  • Create clear and simple layouts: Design clear navigation, logical structure, and large enough click targets to be easily used by everyone, including those with motor disabilities. Define a proper heading structure (h1 to h6) for each page.
  • Prioritize sufficient color contrast and text alternatives: Ensure that text is easily readable against its background and that non-text content like images and icons have descriptive text alternatives.
  • Design for keyboard-only use: Plan the user flow and tab order so it can be navigated using only a keyboard.

Developer

  • Use semantic and accessible code: Build with semantic HTML and ensure all interactive elements are keyboard operable.
  • Provide text alternatives: Write descriptive alt text for images, provide transcripts for audio, and captions for video.
  • Ensure ARIA compliance: Use Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) attributes to improve the experience for users of screen readers, where native HTML is not sufficient.
  • Support dynamic content: Make sure that dynamic content updates and alerts are conveyed to assistive technologies.

Tester

  • Develop an accessibility test plan: Create a plan that outlines accessibility goals and prioritizes which test plans to execute for different releases.
  • Use a combination of testing methods: Combine automated testing tools with comprehensive manual testing, as manual testing is the most reliable method for catching all issues.
  • Manual testing: Manually check for keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, color contrast, and logical structure.
  • Test with assistive technologies: Test the application with common assistive technologies, such as screen readers, speech input, magnifier, default font size, etc. Especially screen reader testing must consider different platforms and devices (e.g. NVDA with Firefox on Windows laptop, VoiceOver with Safari on an iPhone).

Accessibility Audits

We offer clients quick audits for a first overview as well as extensive accessibility audits of websites and native apps.

Web Accessibility Quick Audit

A client wants to know how accessible their website or app is? Our experts will conduct an Accessibility Quick Audit to identify potential barriers. These audits focus on the following accessibility requirements:

  • Color contrast (automatic audit tool)
  • Correct use of ARIA (automatic audit tool)
  • Heading structure
  • Keyboard navigation
  • Alternative text for images

Extensive Accessibility Audits

Our accessibility experts audit a website or native app for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the relevant legal standards (e.g. European standard EN 301 549). The client receives an extensive report with detailed information on all discovered accessibility violations as well as recommended remediation actions.