Public sector · · 6 min read
Making council services usable on a phone in a car park
By the Astaria team
Residents rarely use council services at a desk. They use them one handed, on an older phone, on patchy signal, often while doing something else.
We test on a throttled connection and a five year old handset before we test on a laptop. If a form cannot be completed in those conditions, it is not finished.
WCAG 2.2 AA gives you keyboard access, contrast and clear labels. What it does not give you is short sentences, saved progress and plain error messages. Those come from watching people use the thing.
Publish an accessibility statement that says what is broken and when it will be fixed. Residents forgive gaps far more readily than they forgive silence.