At Zendesk, it’s important to make our products accessible and easy for everyone to use, including people who rely on assistive technology.
As our products continue to evolve, accessibility is a priority. Our goal is not only to meet the industry standard (WCAG 2.1 AA), but also to go beyond it wherever possible.
This article describes some of the most notable accessibility features in Zendesk products. For additional information, including our compliance audits, refer to Zendesk Product Accessibility.
This article includes the following sections:
Accessibility features in Zendesk products
Zendesk products include these accessibility features:
Feature | Description |
---|---|
Navigation, page titles, and headings | Zendesk products use consistent navigation methods. Page titles, headings, and labels describe the topic or purpose. Content is presented in the correct reading sequence. |
Style sheet flexibility | To help improve visibility, many users prefer to configure their own style sheets. Zendesk does not specifically block user style sheets or use inline style sheets (with the exception of some reporting features). |
Keyboard shortcuts | As an alternative to point and click, Zendesk supports a number of keyboard shortcuts to enable the primary functionality of the application.
The Zendesk team is working to improve ticket fields within the Support interface and standardize keyboard interactions. Some drop-down components in Support allowed for the selection of menu items through the use of the Tab key, but others didn't. To fix this inconsistency, the Product team follows WAI-ARIA guidance in reserving the Tab key for navigation and the Enter and Space keys for selection. Autocomplete drop-down components only allow for selection through the Enter key. |
Image tagging, text alternatives | Many images are textually tagged or otherwise available to assistive technology. |
Image consistency | Zendesk is actively working on bringing consistency to all icons to make sure the meaning assigned to those images is consistent throughout our products. |
Image maps | Zendesk does not use server-side or client-side image maps that can obscure or hide application controls from screen readers. |
Background images | Zendesk uses background images presented via cascading style sheets (CSS). In many cases, these background images are used for cosmetic purposes and do not restrict control. |
Links | Zendesk products contain links which indicate their purpose, in context. |
Communications channels | Zendesk supports multiple communications channels, including email, talk, and chat, that give users communication options. |
Speech and hearing alternatives | Other than Zendesk Talk (an optional product), Zendesk products do not contain any features that require user speech or hearing. |
Animations | Some animations are included, but they are not used in conjunction with basic product functionality. |
Color recognition | To help users with color recognition issues, color coding is not the only means of conveying information to indicate an action, prompt a response, or distinguish a visual element. Other design elements are included. All information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup. |
Display attributes | Zendesk products do not override user-selected contrast and color selections and other individual display attributes. |
Flashing and blinking | No features of Zendesk use flashing or blinking greater than 2 Hz or lower than 55Hz. |
Tables | To aid screen reader technology, row and column headings are identified in tables. |
Application plug-ins | No additional plug-ins are necessary to view or interact with content on Zendesk products. |
Forms | Zendesk pays careful attention to standards when marking up forms. In a few cases, labels may not have relevant “for” properties to associate them with their relevant input. |
Time limits | Users can take as long as they need to complete tasks. There are no time-limited features or items of functionality in Zendesk products. |
Product support documentation | End users with disabilities can request product support documentation in alternate formats. Admins can modify the look of the Zendesk Help Center. |
Accessibility Recommendations for users
For best results, Zendesk recommends that users do the following:
- Become familiar with Zendesk keyboard shortcuts. For more information, see Viewing and disabling keyboard shortcuts.
- Take advantage of personal style sheets or adjust browser settings to meet your accessibility needs.
- If you use Guide, familiarize yourself with guidelines for making your help center and help center content more accessible. See Making your help center accessible and Creating accessible help center content
- To report accessibility issues that you find with our products, email us at product-accessibility@zendesk.com. Your feedback is important to us.
6 comments
Chris Blouch
Where do I report accessibility issues? I have a page with a decorative background image added as part of a template. This image is placed on the page behind the header and search box but lacks either an alt="" or aria-hidden="true" attribute. Without these attributes a screen reader is going to fall back to reading the img src, something like:
theme.zdassets.com/theme_assets/594786/288412cbd1fcb4b4a1b80c994cf2ae971ca996b2.png
which is verbose and useless. In order to meet the W3C WCAG 1.1.1
https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/text-equiv-all.html
there needs to be a way to mark this image so it can be ignored by assistive technology.
2
Holly
Zendesk does not currently certify that the Web Widget meets web accessibility standards such as the ones stated in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). You can view our Voluntary Product Accessibility Template here, which details the products that have received such certifications. We are continuously working to improve the accessibility of all of our out-of-the-box products, including the Web Widget. The Web Widget is on our immediate roadmap for development (currently scheduled for H1 2020) and to obtain certification for meeting compliance.
If the Web Widget is currently not meeting your requirements, I wanted to let you know that Zendesk also offers a Chat Web SDK that would allow your team to build its own Chat widget, to any standards desired in the meantime.
Please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you!
-1
Chris Blouch
Thanks for the response. I'm assuming you meant H1 2022 :) In any case, I'm pleased that Zendesk will be working to resolve. Adding alt="" to an image shouldn't be a heavy lift so I'm looking forward to this being fixed soon. Is there a way I can track this issue short of polling this forum? There are many other accessibility problems I would want to ensure are included in the scope of Zendesk progress toward providing an inclusive experience. How are you testing for accessibility? I'm happy to pull together a list or the like if that would be helpful. Is this the proper channel to document and resolve them?
1
Richard Boardman
Hi Chris Blouch - this is Richard Boardman from Zendesk Product Accessibility. Quick follow-up. Thanks for reaching out!
We have a brand new process for reporting Accessibility issues, so new that it hasn't been published yet :-). Please can you email us at accessibility@zendesk.com with the specific details and we will follow-up directly?
The alt text issue you mention definitely needs a look at. It sounds like this relates to our Guide / Help Center so if your site is public, pls include a URL so we can take a peek. If not, a screenshot would be great.
We will also point you at our Accessibility bug reporting template so you can report the other problems too and we will work with the responsible product teams to remediate.
Across our products, we are striving to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. Many teams, including Guide and our Messaging Web Widget, have significant H1 2022 efforts in play after recently completing new audits. Hopefully, we can fold this issue in if its not in the backlog already. We're also going to soon publish the audit results so watch this space.
In terms of testing, we're using a range of tools, although the specifics vary by product team. In general, we use a layered approach:
In the future, we plan to introduce usability testing with end users who rely on assistive technology too so we can move beyond compliance to a truly usable experience.
Please let us know if you have more questions, and thanks again for reaching out.
1
Sydney Neubauer
I have created a feedback post for accessibility suggestions so I am going to drop this here in hopes it gets some traction https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/5028241332762-Accessibility-options
2
Stephen
Hi,
I want to call out Sydney Neubauer's post - it is excellent and well written.
Richard Boardman - it would be great to get some feedback on Sydney's commentary, as I think there are definitely some deficencies in Zendesk's current accessibility offerrings.
1