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Ensuring your website meets WCAG 2.1 standards

Last updated: 6 May 2025 at 12:15:49 UTC by Administrator

Ensuring Your JAMS Website Meets WCAG 2.1 AA Standards

JAMS (built on Odoo 14 Community) enables your Association of Local Councils to publish event listings, sell tickets, run a support portal, host a knowledgebase and blog, and more. To comply with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018, your site must meet WCAG 2.1 AA. This article explains what you need to do - and clarifies where Junari’s responsibilities end and yours begin.

1. What Is WCAG 2.1 AA - and Why It Matters

  • WCAG 2.1 AA is the recognised standard for web accessibility in the UK public sector.

  • It ensures that people with visual, auditory, motor or cognitive impairments can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with your site.

  • Compliance is mandatory for .gov.uk and similar domains.

2. Key Areas to Address

Below are the most common WCAG 2.1 AA checkpoints you’ll need to satisfy:

  • Colour Contrast - Text, icons and controls must meet a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text.

  • Keyboard Navigation - All features and pages must be fully operable using only a keyboard.

  • Semantic HTML & Landmarks - Proper use of headings, lists, forms and <nav> regions helps screen-reader users orient themselves.

  • Form Labelling & Errors - Every form field needs a label, and error messages must clearly explain how to fix the issue.

  • Alternative Text - All meaningful images and icons require descriptive alt text; decorative images should use empty alt attributes (alt="").

  • Focus Indicators - Interactive elements must display a visible focus outline when tabbing.

  • ARIA Roles & Attributes - Use sparingly and correctly, so as not to conflict with native HTML semantics.

  • Page Titles & Language - Each page needs a unique, descriptive <title> and the correct lang attribute on the <html> tag.

  • Text Resizing - Content should reflow cleanly at up to 200% browser zoom without loss of functionality.

  • Timing & Media Controls - Provide pause, stop or hide controls for any moving or auto-updating content.

3. Junari’s Responsibilities

As your JAMS supplier and system hosting provider, Junari will:

  1. Supply the standard Odoo 14 Community theme
    We deliver JAMS using the out-of-the-box Odoo 14 Community theme, which incorporates the foundational accessibility features required for WCAG 2.1 AA.

  2. Maintain core code & hosting environment
    We ensure that platform upgrades, security patches and server settings do not introduce accessibility regressions.

  3. Support technical remediations
    If reported to us or we spot any platform-level issues, we will fix them. For example, missing ARIA roles in core modules or incorrect heading structure in our templates - or your web developer can do this themselves.

  4. Advise on third-party widgets
    We explain why overlays (such as UserWay) cannot replace true compliance and how to integrate them responsibly if you choose to use them.

Note: Anything beyond your monthly support allocation (for example, a manual audit of your website or bespoke module development) will be scoped and quoted separately.

4. Customer Responsibilities

To maintain and demonstrate ongoing compliance, you must:

  1. Author accessible content
    Use clear headings, proper lists and consistent styles in the CMS editor.

  2. Provide meaningful alt text
    Add descriptive alt text for every meaningful image or icon; decorative images should use alt="".
    You can achieve this by going into the website editor, entering Edit mode for the selected web page, clicking on the image you wish to tag, then scrolling to the bottom of the panel on the right and clicking the Description button.

  3. Choose accessible colours & fonts
    Ensure all text-to-background colour combinations meet required contrast ratios; avoid fonts below 16 px.

  4. Test and review forms
    Label every field, use placeholder text sparingly and provide clear, custom error messages.
    Note that the Odoo CMS in use by JAMS automatically labels form fields.

  5. Audit documents before upload
    Ensure all PDFs, Word docs and spreadsheets are properly tagged, contain selectable text and have a logical reading order.

  6. Conduct regular accessibility testing
    Run automated scans (for example, WAVE or axe) and manual checks (keyboard-only navigation, screen-reader walkthroughs) whenever you add major updates.

  7. Train anyone using JAMS CMS to edit your website
    Make sure everyone who edits pages understands how to use the JAMS CMS in an accessibility-friendly way.

  8. Perform your own accessibility audit
    As part of onboarding - and whenever you launch substantial new content - run a full audit of your pages to confirm that theme customisations and added content remain compliant.

5. Step-by-step Tips on How to Get Started

  1. Author sample pages in line with this guidance (one event, one support article, one blog post).

  2. Run an automated scan using a tool such as WAVE or axe to highlight any issues.

  3. Address content-level fixes in the CMS (e.g. alt text, headings, contrast).

6. Common FAQs

Q: Will an accessibility widget like UserWay make us compliant?
No. Widgets can help with minor adjustments but do not correct underlying code, semantic markup or document accessibility. They are a supplement - not a substitute - for full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance.

Q: If we buy the paid version of an overlay, will Junari install it?
Yes. We’ll integrate any third-party widget you supply, but you remain responsible for testing its impact and addressing any issues it introduces.

Q: What if our team lacks technical expertise?
Junari can provide short training sessions on writing accessible content in the JAMS CMS under your support retainer.

7. Next Steps & Support

  • Raise a Support Ticket via the JAMS portal for any technical accessibility issues.

By working together - Junari on the platform and you as content owners: we’ll maximise the chance of your site remaining fully accessible, compliant and user-friendly for all. If you have questions or need further assistance, please contact us through your JAMS support portal.