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Configuring an accessible UI

Updated on December 13, 2022
Applicable to Cosmos React and Theme Cosmos applications

Reach the broadest audience for your application by building a user interface that addresses the needs of users with disabilities. Designing a UI for assistive technologies, such as screen readers, is important for compliance and provides essential access to users who have visual impairments.

Web Accessibility Initiative – Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) is a set of principles published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that governs accessibility in applications. A large array of Pega Platform features supports these principles out-of-the-box, for example, by providing cues about screen content to screen readers. However, following best practices and avoiding common mistakes is crucial when creating an application that combines many UI features.

Pega Platform also includes the Accessibility Inspector that helps you check the level of accessibility in your application to ensure the highest possible compliance. If your business needs are more complex, you can further customize various aspects of your UI, such as WAI-ARIA roles, upon which assistive technologies rely.

For example:

The Accessibility Inspector includes a color confusion simulator that helps you check if the colors that you use in your application are readable to users with color blindness.

Sample UI component with no filter (left) and simulated red-green confusion filter (right)

For related training materials, see the Enabling accessibility features in applications module on Pega Academy.

What to do next: Discover more about accessibility in your UI in the following articles:

  • Accessibility standards in Pega Platform

    Pega supports users with disabilities by continuously integrating the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) standards into the architecture of applications that you develop. As a consequence, applications include accessibility features by default, which makes them more convenient for users who rely on assistive technology.

  • Out-of-the-box accessibility features

    Because accessibility is a design principle rather than a set of options that the user can enable or disable, many of its features are included by default in the architecture of Pega Platform applications.

  • Best practices for accessibility

    Accessible design helps users with disabilities access the full range of application features. By following best practices for accessibility, you ensure that your application meets the industry standards for all types of users.

  • Inspecting accessibility

    Identify and fix accessibility issues to ensure that users with disabilities can quickly access and efficiently operate your application. By using the Accessibility Inspector tool, you can check what your application looks like to users of varying visual ability and review UI components that are not accessible.

  • Custom configuration options for accessibility

    Pega Platform provides an expanding framework for building an accessible user interface. While the accessibility features are designed to cover most use cases out-of-the-box, you can also change their default settings to match your particular business needs.

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