Digital accessibility: legal obligations and RGAA best practices

Web accessibility is no longer optional. With strengthened RGAA and the European directive, every site must be usable by all. What is digital accessibility?: Digital accessibility aims to make web content and services usable by everyone, including people with disabilities (visual, auditory, motor, cognitive). In France, 12 million people are affected. An accessible site also benefits seniors, mobile users, and improves SEO. Legal framework in France and Europe: RGAA applies to public services and progressively to companies with €250M+ revenue. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) entered force on 28 June 2025, extending obligations to the private sector. Sanctions range from €2,500 to €25,000 per infringement. Essential RGAA criteria: Based on WCAG 2.1 level AA: text alternatives for images, video subtitles, keyboard navigation, sufficient contrasts (4.5:1 minimum), form labels, semantic structure, understandable error messages. An RGAA audit evaluates 106 criteria across 13 themes. Testing tools: Axe DevTools, WAVE, Lighthouse, Pa11y (CI/CD), NVDA and VoiceOver (screen readers). Automated auditing detects about 30-40% of issues; the rest requires manual expert audit and testing with real disabled users. Our approach: At Powehi, accessibility is integrated from design (accessibility by design). Every component is tested with keyboard and screen reader. We target RGAA AA level for all projects.