Accessibility

At REI we believe the outdoors is for all—and our digital experiences should be for everyone too. Our goal is to deliver valuable, inspirational and accessible experiences for all kinds of people, including those with disabilities.

Cedar is committed to designing and developing components, tokens and styles that help ensure our digital products meet or exceed the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA.

Use Cedar as a jumping off point for incorporating required accessibility standards into REI’s website and products.

The POUR guidelines (perceivable, operable, understandable, robust) are a great place to start when looking to design and build for accessibility. The Cedar team uses these principles when designing reusable resources.

Perceivable

Information and user interface components should be perceivable in multiple ways so users can consume content according to their needs and preferences.

For perceivable content:

• Add text alternatives to any non-text content like images, charts, audio files, etc.
• Include closed captions and other alternatives for multimedia
• Allow users to change the presentation of content so it can be correctly read aloud, enlarged or adapted
• Ensure content is easy to see and hear

Operable

Create a workable experience for all by providing options for users to navigate and interact with your content using their preferred tools.

For operable content:

• Provide keyboard access to all functionality that is available by mouse
• Provide enough time to read and use the content
• Avoid content that flashes, or provide warnings and mechanisms to switch it off
• Organize content so users can easily navigate
• Allow for the use of different input methods, like voice recognition and touch activation

Understandable

Use language and functionality in a way that is easy for everyone to understand. This is best done by creating a consistent, intuitive experience and creating content with simple, clear language.

For understandable content:

• Ensure text is readable and understandable to the broadest possible audience by using plain language
• Apply consistent usage of navigation, icons, and terminology across the site
• Help users avoid and correct mistakes

Robust

Robust content will work for your learners on a range of current and future technologies, including assistive technologies.

For robust content:

• Ensure markup is valid so it can be reliably interpreted
• Provide a name, role, and value for non-standard user interface components

Cedar components have built-in accessibility attributes, which are a starting point in making your product accessible. Product teams are responsible for ensuring accessibility compliance when implementing these components.

Our component documentation also provides best practices for reference. Each component article describes what is already built-in, and what the product team is responsible for to ensure compliance.

For example, a key accessibility principle is to always provide appropriate alternative text for images.

The Cedar image component provides a built-in empty alt attribute that is added by default.

The product team is responsible for writing the alt text to provide an equivalent to the image content.

The Accessibility team at REI is responsible for optimizing or creating the systems, education and governance empowering us to deliver accessible experiences by default. Visit the accessibility hub to find useful guidance, training, testing support and tools to help you create accessible products.