Accessibility Review: Unique Disability Identity Card (UDID) Portal of Government of India

A while ago, Department of Empowerment of People with Disabilities has launched Swavlamban Card portal to provide disability certificate and Unique Disability ID to persons with disabilities. I have pleased to see there has been a lot of care taken towards ensuring accessibility of the portal. Some of the positive things done on this portal:

• All elements have sufficient contrast between foreground and background
• Alternate text is provided for all images
• Lists are marked up correctly
• Headings are marked up though they can be improved
• Play / pause functionality is provided for carousal
• Associated labels are provided for input fields (except a few)

Here are a few things that needs attention:

• Combo box to select language does not have associated label; there is no apply button to select language; there is an auto apply provided but this would cause inconvenience to keyboard only users; User would not be able to navigate through available options as page keeps refreshing for every language and focus moves out of the combo box.
• Search button does not have visible focus indicator
• When “high contrast” theme is selected, it does not get applied to elements next to carousal (e.g. Apply for disability certificate and UDID card etc.,)
• “previous, play/pause and next” elements appear and function like buttons but marked up as links
• There are several links on carousal with screen name “Register now” and these links need to provide better context
• Content under “Quick access keys” appear like a text content but marked up as links – need to remove hyperlinking.
• Heading structure can be improved; structure went up to level 5; all level 5 headings can be marked up as level 2 and level 4 as well to level 2.
• Department of Empowerment of People with Disabilities appears to have linked to a different URL – i.e. http://innovationclustersarchive.nic.in/content/index.php, Department of Empowerment of Persons

This is only a quick review of home page and not the complete assessment. Overall, I think there are some good steps taken and accessibility has kept in mind while building the portal.