FAQ – Frequently asked questions

So you will be finished in time!

It's correct that the EAA – the European Accessibility Act – will not come into effect until June 2025. Of course, you can still decide to act when its implementation is mandatory for all businesses in Europe that do not match the definition as 'SME with less than 10 employees or less than 2 million € sales volume'. Or some years down the line, when all businesses have to implement it.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you or your developers ready to change your site in a few weeks straight away to an accessible one?
• Will I find experts who will train me or my developers?
• Am I ready to risk a written warning if my website does not meet the accessibility standards?
• Am I willing to risk that another business in competition with myself will take market shares away because their website is easier to use?

If the answer to any of these questions is 'No', you should start right now.

Not to mention that the code that is going to be changed during the course Barrier-fasting could also have a positive impact on your performance, SEO, or other aspects such as sustainability. Those are however different and unique categories of web development and not our first aim inBarrier-fasting.

These are possible reasons:

Technical reasons

• Browsers tolerate plenty of errors. They have been developed at different speeds over the last years, not always implementing the needed standards.
• To counter this, many tools are available that make web development easier and should correct any faulty interpretations. Many are no longer needed but are still widely used.
• Being compatible with devices and browsers was more important than adapting to human needs.

This made accessibility fall by the wayside in many cases.

ost of the time, using 'simple' clean HTML code and well-placed CSS code will improve significantly the results.

Human reasons

• Ableism and lacking political and economic willingness to implement more inclusion are the most obvious societal reasons.
• Additionally, many previous Diploma degree courses have been changed to Bachelor's degree courses, adding a multitude of implementation technologies without early specialization.
• Soon the basics of semantic HTML structures and best practice methods were no longer taught. Instead, the application of frameworks became the main focus.
• Brand design and marketing focused on the website looking good on different devices.
• Designers are still bemoaning the loss of format control due to responsive web implementation since 2010.

No.

100 % accessibility can't be achieved. Some use the term low barrier instead of accessible websites. Others prefer to use 'inclusive websites'.

Accessibility is a comprehensive task, not only including the use of accessible code, but also design and structure, as well as content – texts, pictures, audio and video, PDF, forms, and spreadsheets – that need to follow certain rules. Immediate implementation of all these factors is near impossible.

Barrier-fasting's motto is 'Simply start!' Just changing a little bit of website code daily will help you overcome the first hurdles of becoming an accessible website in a mere six weeks.

No.

The basic requirement is a HTML-based website that can be code-managed by you, your team, or your web developer, with direct access to the code.
This is very dependent on the used technology as well as the used content management system (CMS) or framework.

WordPress

Own WordPress theme

If your site uses your own WordPress theme, all needed changes can be made by the developers directly in the source code.

Bought WordPress theme

If your site uses a bought theme, changes in the source code can be done for example with the help of child themes.

Plugin usage

No WordPress site can be run completely free of additional plugins. Those are often not yet available in an accessible form. if they are, they are usually developed mainly for the US market. This leads them to be often incompatible with the German/European Law for Data Storage and Usage(DSGVO).

Some plugins can be adapted (or be adapted for you), but not all of them. Sometimes adaptations might not be the way to go, as they might lead to problems with the next update.

If you work on your website without the help of developers or utilize no code plugins, e.g. Elementor, then participation in this course is not possible.

Angular and React – with or without design framework

Please ask your developers how far participation in Barrier-fasting might be possible. Some of these tools are implementing accessibility code soon. Your project should then be able to change to it as well.

HTML- and CSS-Code

Barrier-fasting is based on the assumption that you (or your developers) change a line or unit in HTML or CSS code or the structure of a specific element daily.

Possibly some JavaScript or JQuery functions will be obsolete after doing so.

0–32

Barrier-fasting starts on Ash Wednesday and will continue until Maundy Thursday. That timeframe consists of 32 workdays. Each day, a new change will be on the Barrier-fasting website. It is possible that some changes do not have to be implemented on your website because your website is already optimized for it.

Once the program is finished, yes.

The idea of Barrier-fasting is the implementation of big changes in small daily tasks. A new task is added daily, but you can access all previous tasks.

No.

Many of the changes we implement in the course of Barrier-fasting are 'under the hood'. But that's exactly the point, to imagine the non-visible part of a website and treat it as if it were the visible part for all users that do not need accessibility.

The look of your site can still be the same as before, but only if you look at it with the fitting settings. If your site uses black font on white background and your text is using approximately 16 px font-size:

• Light-mode in operating system
• Medium font size in browser

If users are using different settings, you should interpret them as their preference of view and adapt your website to their preferences.

• Fontsize should be reactive to settings and your website should look well and, most importantly, work well with very small and very big font settings.
  Big font sizes have the problem of text being cut off for the user. You can learn how to circumvent this problem in Barrier-fasting.
• Low contrast settings should reduce the colour of the font in light and dark mode to less contrast towards the background colour. You can also change both colours to closer values. Higher contrast settings should utilize the maximum contrast levels (black and white).
  To rectify this, all you need are some lines of CSS code, that you will get to know during Barrier-fasting.
• If animations are utilized on your website they should only play if users explicitly allow them in their settings. If the setting 'less movement' is activated, you should respect the user's wish and not play them. Generally, it is a good idea to implement animations, videos and audio in a way that users can stop them easily.

This sounds probably all more restrictive than it really is. You still can use the web design that represents your unique corporate design. You or your designers should simply elevate your corporate design to include different looks in different modes.

A number of small ones.

Accessibility is provided by many parts that need to work together to remove barriers. Some can easily be assigned to help users with certain conditions or disabilities, others can not. Barrier-fasting focuses on general access to content and usability for many people. Assistive technology will be a tool for many of us in the future.

• Correct translation of text, if translation tools offer the needed language.
• Easy orientation to see if the loaded page is the one that the user wanted to visit.
• General scalability of the website.
• Scalability of font sizes.
• Easy visibility of navigational focus.
• Navigation options for keyboard, hands and mouse.
• Adjustment to colour settings of users.

Along the way the changes might also lead to better results in the following aspects:

• Responsiveness (Adjustment to different sizes of screens)
• Performance (Loading times)
• SEO (Search engine optimization)
• Sustainability (programming with better use of resources)

Nearly everybody

Much of it depends on what is in your source code and what exactly will be adapted. Even after implementing all changes, there is still a chance that your website includes further code that is not accessible.

I would love to guarantee you that you will be able to reach N% more users than before, but right now there is no data available to determine how many people will profit from these measures exactly. But even if it's only a few users that will be able to use your website in a (better) way afterwards, it will already be a gain for you:

• If they suffer from migraines – because there's a dark mode available.
• If they need a smaller or bigger font size – because your font on the website will automatically adapt to settings.
• If they use a keyboard for navigation – because your website will show which link is currently activated.

Some people need a huge font size, others need a very small one. Some of these people prefer light mode because it's easier for them to read dark figures on light background. Others will prefer dark mode because this will not cause them to suffer from a migraine.

Barrier-fasting does unfortunately not include content creation in easy language or sign language, so people with cognitive restrictions and signing people will not directly benefit from it. However, already in the first week, you can learn what to pay attention to when you integrate easy language and sign language in your site.

It depends.

As of January 2025, only official offices need an accessibility statement. It includes what barriers have been removed and what barriers still exist. Additionally, users need a way to report feedback on still existing barriers they might have found and to be able to contact the federal arbitration body.

It can still be profitable for you to get an accessibility statement once your site is fundamentally accessible, as these sites are also indexed by search engines!

Disclaimer: This is no legal advice! There still might be cases that make it mandatory for you to have one, even if it does not seem likely. Please get legal counsel if in doubt.

none whatsoever.

It is up to you and your team to test the changes and, if needed, keep the code you need for your scripts to run.Barrier-fasting does not offer to look over your code beforehand, therefore it is impossible to guarantee any outcomes.

Please use common methods such as staging and repositories to make tests before going live and to be able to return to a previous version of your site.