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Building Accessible Applications

Accessible user interfaces with SAIL

The Appian platform allows designers to build applications that are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities who employ assistive technologies such as screen readers. In order to meet this goal, Appian validates its product features against the requirements of leading accessibility standards:

Since each screen reader is optimized to work best with a particular browser, Appian recommends the following common combinations of browser and screen reader:

Browser Screen Reader
Chrome JAWS
Edge JAWS
Mozilla Firefox NVDA

Accessibility feature in Appian's SAIL technology allow users with low vision, limited dexterity, and other concerns to consume the same information and perform the same activities as any other user of an application. Many of these capabilities are automatically enabled when using interfaces, while others are activated by making use of specific interface component configuration parameters. Accessibility-related configuration recommendations are described in detail on each interface component documentation page. Example: hidden labels

Interface components with accessibility limitations

A small number of interface components, due to their specialized functionality, may not be accessible to all users.

Charts

Charts represent data in a graphical fashion and can be interpreted by screen readers. Charts support navigation (drill down) using mouse clicks or keyboard inputs.

For users with low vision, there is an Accessibility option in User Settings where they can enable fill patterns on column, bar, and pie charts. For an accessible alternative, provide the data in a grid instead. See this recipe for an example.

Document extraction reconciliation task

The Reconcile Doc Extraction Smart Service generates a task for a user to validate the extracted data. This task requires users to visually inspect an image of a document to validate correct extraction of its contents. Therefore, this feature may not be usable for blind users or those with low vision. To learn more about this task, see Appian Document Extraction.

Hierarchy tree

The hierarchy tree component shows object relationships in a graphical fashion and may not be usable by blind users or those with low vision.

For an accessible alternative, provide the data using a column hierarchy browser instead.

Rich text

Rich text with positive styling does not meet WCAG color contrast requirements and may not be usable by users with low vision.

For an accessible alternative to positive styling, choose a custom green color such as #1B890A that meets WCAG 2.1 AA contrast requirements for text.

Styled rich text items are not interpreted as HTML headings by screen readers. Rich text headers should be used to represent content sections in an accessible way.

Signature drawing pad

The drawing pad on the Signature component is not keyboard accessible. A mouse or touchpad must be used to draw the signature.

Warn color on gauge and progress bar

The warn color option in gauge and progress bar does not meet WCAG color contrast requirements and may not be usable by users with low vision.

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