Monitoring and supervision

The Agency for Digital Government is responsible for conducting simplified and in-depth monitoring of the compliance of the public sector with the accessibility demands according to Danish and European law.

Monitoring

In accordance with the Web Accessibility Directive, the Danish government must monitor public bodies' compliance with accessibility demands. The Agency for Digital Government conducts three types of monitoring: simplified monitoring of websites and in-depth monitoring of websites and mobile applications (apps). The practical part of the monitoring is outsourced to an external supplier.

Simplified monitoring

The simplified monitoring is an automatic assessment of 15 WCAG 2.1 criteria and thus only indicates the level of accessibility of the website in question.

The table below lists the WCAG 2.1 criteria, which are tested in the simplified monitoring, and the corresponding EN 301 549 clauses.

EN 301 549 clause (ver. 3.2.1) WCAG 2.1 success criteria Name
9.1.1.1 1.1.1 Non-text Content
9.1.3.1 1.3.1 Info and Relationships
9.1.3.4 1.3.4 Orientation
9.1.3.5 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose
9.1.4.3 1.4.3 Contrast (minimum)
9.1.4.4 1.4.4 Resize text
9.1.4.12 1.4.12 Text Spacing
9.2.1.1 2.1.1 Keyboard
9.2.2.1 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable
9.2.4.2 2.4.2 Page Titled
9.2.4.4 2.4.4 Link Purpose (in context)
9.2.5.3 2.5.3 Label in Name
9.3.1.1 3.1.1 Language on Page
9.3.1.2 3.1.2 Language of Parts
9.4.1.2 4.1.2 Name, role, value

The current technology and Accessibility Conformance Testing Rules (ACT rules) limits the number of tested criteria. To conduct the simplified monitoring, The Danish Agency for Digital Government uses the free and open source tool ‘QualWeb’, developed by the University of Lisbon.

Read more about QualWeb

Go to QualWeb at GitHub

Read more about Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT) Rules at w3.org

In-depth monitoring

The in-depth monitoring is a manual assessment of the website or app in question. In-depth monitoring of a website is based on a simplified monitoring, whereas in-depth monitoring of an app is based only on manual testing.

In-depth monitoring verifies interaction with forms, flows, user interface, modals, confirmation of data entries, error messages and other feedback from interaction with the user. Furthermore, in-depth monitoring assesses content such as videos, documents and self-service solutions.

The accessibility statement

As part of the simplified monitoring procedures, it is assessed whether the accessibility statement meets the basic requirements for accessibility statements. The in-depth monitoring contains a full evaluation of the accessibility statement, including the use of exemptions provided for in the Act.

Supervision

The Agency for Digital Government is responsible for the supervision process according to the Danish Web Accessibility Act in relation to whether:

  • websites and apps of public sector bodies are “perceivable, operable, understandable and robust”, cf. section 3.
  • the public sector bodies are entitled to claim an exemption for content based on “disproportionate burden”, cf. section 3, subsection 2. In justified cases, it might not be reasonably possible to make specific content fully accessible.
  • the accessibility statement is updated, detailed, comprehensive, clear and published correctly, cf. section 4, subsections 1-3.

According to section 6 subsection 4, the Agency can issue three types of orders:

  • To make specific content accessible.
  • To make sure that the accessibility statement is adequate and updated.
  • To assign an accessible alternative.