Accessibility is a broad term that describes the ways in which an application can accommodate users with varying degrees of disability. An accessible application can be used by people with varying physical capabilities or limitations. Developers who build accessible applications have to consider the needs of these application users during the design phase.

Users of an accessible application will likely use some sort of assistive technology to access the applications that you build. Assistive technologies include screen readers, speech recognition software, high-contrast monitor settings, text zoom, or keyboard-only interaction.

At Pegasystems, our mission is to deliver products that can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities, so that our customers can realize their true business potential. The Pega 7 Platform conforms to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and provides configuration capabilities to build accessible applications so that users with or without disabilities can perform their work as efficiently as possible with or without assistive technologies.

How the Pega 7 Platform supports accessibility

Semantic HTML: The Pega 7 Platform includes configurable heading-level support on container settings. Heading-level support is included on components that display headers. The generated markup creates the appropriate heading tags for the container. The markup reinforces semantics, or the meaning, of the information on a webpage or in a web application instead of merely defining its presentation or look. The use of clearly defined markup such as <header>, <nav>, <section>, <footer>, <main>, <aside>, <h1>, and so on, communicates the structure of a page to an assistive technology. Remember that a CSS only defines the appearance of on-screen elements, not their role or position in the page structure.

Selecting heading levels in the dynamic layout properties

Dynamic layout roles: The Pega 7 Platform includes WAI-ARIA role settings on dynamic layouts. The WAI-ARIA role describes the type and structure of elements on the page to make advanced web applications accessible and usable by people with disabilities. The dynamic layout has accessibility settings for landmark, document structure, component, or widget. It also includes properties to describe the state of interactive elements such as buttons, links, fields, or live regions.

Assigning a role for a dynamic layout

Enable accessibility

Accessibility in the Pega 7 Platform is turned on at the access group level by including the PegaWAI ruleset. See Enabling accessibility in an application.

Ways to enhance accessibility

There are a few ways to make your application more accessible. Follow these tips to add some accessibility to any application.

• Set tooltips on controls, buttons, links, icons, and input fields to announce the control's function to users with a screen reader.
• Set the enter event on a control when you set a click event on the control. Users tabbing through the interface use keyboard controls instead of a mouse.
• Never add a click action and a double-click action on the same element.
• Include links with icons.
• Use a button or a link to dismiss an overlay.
• Do not use a CSS to show or hide content, because doing so can cause problems for users of screen readers.