Energy Calculator Accessibility Assessment

Accessibility compliance against WCAG 2.0

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E.ON are one of the UK’s leading power and gas companies, employing more than 79,000 people worldwide. Supplying more than 50 million people with electricity and gas, their vision is to be their customer’s trusted energy partner. They do this by talking to customers and aiming to product clear and simple communication that is easy to understand.

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We were asked by E.ON to assess several key pages for accessibility compliance against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 on their E.ON Age UK Energy calculator application, taking into account the use of JAWs screen readers.

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Code inspection and technical testing

We supplied a list of 12 page types and interactions to test against including:

• Login
• Compare input screen,
• Results
• Details pages
• Payment
• Confirmation…

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We performed a manual inspection of the source code using a standard web browser and used lightweight tools such as the W3C Online HTML and CSS Validators, AIS Accessibility Toolbar and AIS Colour Contrast Analyser (based on WAI algorithm) as part of our technical testing.

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We also performed a JAWS screen reader expert review using JAWS 10. We gathered requirements and performed the manual testing using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 as a checklist and also provided further guidance and prioritisation of the results as required by E.ON.

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Checking compliance with screen readers was particularly important due to the older audience using application process. Accessibility considerations included:

• Copy – All copy needs to be readable by a screen reader, which means no text should be shown in an image format.
• Image/video representation – All non-text formats such as images, video and audio should have a representation in text.

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Identifying confusing or misleading areas

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Through this study we were able to identify areas of the process that would potentially confuse or mislead older users, particularly for users of screen readers such as JAWS. We provided a detailed report clearly highlighting specific examples of accessibility issues, their impact on users and examples of how they could be improved to meet accessibility standards.

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