RGAA Standards
In France, 90 % of the population, including your clients, connect to websites and online content from smartphones, laptops, desktop stations, digital street furniture… running on different OS (operating systems) and browsers.
To facilitate access to web content, digital reference bodies have developed a « universal » method and defined an operational framework for compliance control. These are the RGAA standards, which digital players have had to integrate to ensure digital accessibility for the greatest number, whether able-bodied or disabled persons.
Galadrim, a web and mobile application creation agency, systematically integrates the highest RGAA accessibility standards adapted to the technical and functional requirements of your project. This article presents in detail what RGAA standards are.
All about RGAA Standards
Origin of RGAA accessibility criteria
The acronym RGAA stands for general accessibility improvement framework. This standard, published by the Interministerial Digital Directorate (DINUM), serves to control and simplify public access to online communication services. This concerns all types of digital information, regardless of content, access mode, or consultation method.
This framework is a transposition of international digital accessibility rules defined by WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) as part of the work of WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) within the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
WCAG explains how to make web content accessible to disabled people. By web content, we mean text, image, video, and sound information published on a web page, but also the technical aspect of publication media, with the code, the markup that defines the page structure, hierarchy, presentation…
To comply with RGAA criteria, the first two WCAG levels must be met : A (minimum compliance), AA (standard success criterion), with AAA compliance level concerning only certain web resources.
Other sources have enabled the establishment of the RGAA framework, notably the harmonised European standard EN 301 549. This establishes accessibility requirements for ICT (information and communication technology) products and services, or indeed HTML reference works.
Accessibility is primarily important for its inclusive dimension, but it is also important with regard to legality and to a lesser extent with regard to
SEO optimisation (Search Engine Optimization). A standards-compliant site, well-coded and correctly structured with quality content, will achieve better positioning for relevant keywords. The RGAA determines a method and an operational framework for controlling compliance with the accessibility rules defined in the texts, which require that sites and content be :
Perceptible, by facilitating their visual and auditory perception ;
Usable, by providing the user with all alternative means to navigate the site, access information ;
Understandable, by assisting the user in their navigation and in the actions they can perform (correction when filling out a form, intuitive navigation…) ;
Robust, by ensuring the longevity and compatibility of accessibility mechanisms.
Who are the RGAA standards for ?
RGAA accessibility standards fall within the scope of Article 47 of the law of 11 February 2005 for equal rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship of disabled people. Let's recall that a disability is defined by a « substantial, lasting, or definitive alteration of one or more physical, sensory, mental, cognitive, or psychic functions, of multiple disabilities, or of a debilitating health disorder ».
Applied by professionals who develop websites and digital content, tools for web publishing (CMS…), RGAA standards are also aimed at developers of tools intended to evaluate web accessibility or anyone else needing to integrate web and mobile accessibility standards.
The obligation to implement RGAA standards applies to public or private organisations with a public service mission. This concerns companies whose funding is predominantly provided by public organisations or which have a public order mission, as well as companies with an annual turnover greater than or equal to 250 million. This amount is defined by decree by the Council of State.
To which media do RGAA accessibility rules apply ?
Compliance with RGAA criteria concerns websites, intranets, and extranets as soon as they can be consulted via a mobile application or a browser, mobile applications, and the application and interactive part of digital street furniture.
The 13 areas concerned by RGAA accessibility
The general accessibility improvement framework covers all aspects of digital content. It comprises 106 RGAA accessibility control criteria, with an average of 2 tests per criterion. These accessibility criteria are grouped into 13 areas covering :
Images ;
Frames (iframes) ;
Colours ;
Multimedia elements ;
Tables ;
Links ;
Scripts ;
Mandatory mentions and elements ;
Information structuring ;
Information presentation ;
Forms ;
Navigation ;
The consultation.
Each domain is then subdivided into several criteria, allowing the site's accessibility level to be established. For images, the first criterion will be, for example, the presence of a text alternative. This accessibility criterion is associated with a methodology allowing it to be tested to validate or invalidate it during an audit phase. Another example, for complex data tables, it is asked whether an accessible summary exists on the page. A testing methodology is also presented to validate or invalidate the criterion. Each domain adheres to the same nomenclature:
Analysis domain;
Accessibility criterion;
Testing methodology.
RGAA compliance audit
Sites concerned by the implementation of RGAA compliance must carry out an accessibility audit. Either the organisation performs this check itself, or it entrusts a third party with the task of checking the accessibility level of the support and content against the RGAA criteria. This audit must be reliable, meaning that the resulting declaration cannot be challenged. It must also be representative, meaning that it must cover a representative sample containing:
The homepage, the site's landing page;
The contact page, including contact information or form;
The legal notice page;
The sitemap page showing the entire site structure and allowing direct access to the different pages;
The help page;
The authentication page, if applicable;
And the accessibility page, including the RGAA accessibility rate declaration.
The sample can be supplemented by a number of other pages:
A representative page for each section;
A document to download;
The various pages of a conversion process;
A representative page containing different types of content: table, sound, video, image, form…
Evaluation criteria
Each page is evaluated according to applicable criteria, which then allows for determining the number of validated and unvalidated criteria, and establishing the RGAA compliance rate for each page. A partially validated criterion on a page is considered unvalidated. Furthermore, if the page is part of a process, the RGAA compliance criterion must be validated on all pages of the process to be considered validated.
In summary, the RGAA criteria compliance rate results from dividing the number of validated criteria by the number of applicable criteria. A criterion is validated if it is validated on all pages of the sample, and to be applicable, it is sufficient for a criterion to be present on just one page.
Accessibility statement
The accessibility statement resulting from this RGAA criteria compliance audit must indicate the website's compliance rate. It is total if all applicable criteria are validated, partial if at least 50% of them are validated, and non-compliant if the percentage of criteria is less than 50% or if no audit results exist. The accessibility statement must also mention non-accessible content and specify whether it is an RGAA non-compliance or exempted content (some pre-recorded audio and video content or old office files…), or even if it can benefit from a disproportionate burden exemption (when it is reasonably impossible for the organisation to make content or functionality accessible). It must also detail the content of the tested sample and indicate contacts and avenues of appeal to allow users to interact in case of accessibility issues.
This accessibility statement must, where applicable, contain a link pointing to the multi-year accessibility implementation plan, which precisely outlines the actions planned over the next 3 years to bring the site into RGAA compliance.
Sanctions for non-compliance
Administrations or private companies subject to RGAA compliance may be sanctioned in the event of non-compliance with their obligations. The fine amount ranges from 2,000 € for websites of municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants to 20,000 € for companies.
Your site compliant with RGAA accessibility criteria
There are several tools allowing you to test the compliance of your website or mobile application with RGAA accessibility criteria. By basing yourself on the general accessibility improvement framework, you will have access to all the criteria and testing methodologies for each of them.
It is highly recommended that you partner with an agency specialising in the creation of websites and mobile applications. This agency will conduct a comprehensive analysis of your digital application's compliance with RGAA accessibility criteria. It will establish the multi-year accessibility implementation plan with you and carry out all adaptations in compliance with RGAA standards and implementation language standards.
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