Website Owners: Mindbreeze GmbH
Website Domain: search.mindbreeze.com/apps/wai
Certificate Status: Silver
Certification Date: 2022-11-16
WACA certification
With this certificate, the WACA initiative strives for a very high level and outstanding quality of accessibility, which is why the most basic WCAG criteria must be met for successful certification. The auditors test according to a predefined scheme and their own testing methodology strictly according to these criteria. The WACA certificate is awarded at 3 different levels. For each WCAG success criterion, a separate grading for gold, silver and bronze has been defined. This means that websites that do not meet the highest WCAG requirements or are best practice, but have basic accessibility and do not exclude anyone from using the website, can also be awarded. For the Silver or Bronze grades, accessibility efforts must be clearly and unambiguously recognizable, see definition of WACA grades.
WACA certifies websites that can be narrowed down precisely, usually defined by a URL, and draws a representative sample (test sample) from this. However, the following content or functions of a website are generally excluded from the audit:
- PDF
- EPUB
- Live transmitted time-based media
- Content that is only available to a closed group of people and not to the general public (extranets and intranets).
- external content from third-party providers that was neither financed nor developed by the website operator and is therefore not subject to its control (such as Google Maps, YouTube, Facebook, external iframes and widgets, etc.), defined as follows:
- Third-party content that cannot be interacted with (e.g. Facebook tracking pixels) is excluded from the check.
- Third-party content that does not provide basic, central functionality of the page is excluded from the check.
- Third-party content that provides additional information and is essential for users requires an alternative.
- If a website consists largely of third-party content, certification is rejected and the order is not accepted. Website is not auditable in this case.
- Online maps and map services, but these must have an accessible alternative.
- Google Captcha (ReCaptcha V2): Only valid for WACA quality levels Silver and Bronze.
General Comment of the Certification Authority:
This web tool should be accessible to most users, even though accessibility is not perfect. One complaint is that the usability (and accessibility to some extent) is somewhat limited on smaller mobile devices, because some hit targets can get very small without zooming (which means scrolling in two directions). Besides that, the visual keyboard focus and non-text contrast ratios can be an issue in some edge cases.
As a representative sample for the Mindbreeze InSpire cloud search web application, a use case in German and English was selected for the certification audit, which is representative of the entire application. The product website www.mindbreeze.com/insite was not in the scope of the audit.
The web application is currently undergoing recertification.
Evaluated test sample
WACA deviations and WACA gradations
Mindbreeze T1: Homepage english
Criterion 1.3.1 - Info and Relationships: Silver
- In the left-hand toolbar (filter criteria), the accordions are not announced as headings, presumably because they use role="tab". Visually and logically, they function as headings. Also, they are not tabs and are therefore marked up incorrectly.
Rating: silber
This is not optimal, but site should be still usable.
Criterion 1.4.3 - Contrast (Minimum): Silver
- The green button in the date picker does not meet the required contrast values.
Rating: silver
This is not ideal, but the impact is limited and therefore not considered severe.
Criterion 1.4.11 - Non-text Contrast: Silver
- In the date picker, the keyboard focus contrast for inactive elements is too low.
Rating: silver
This should not affect overall usability or accessibility too much, but it makes focused elements harder to perceive.
Criterion 2.4.3 - Focus Order: Silver
- The “main/content” container is focusable even though it is not interactive.
Rating: silver
This should not significantly affect usability, but it introduces unnecessary focus stops in the tab order.
Criterion 2.4.7 - Focus Visible: Silver
- The visual keyboard focus can disappear behind the navigation bar when navigating backwards while the page scrolls upward.
Rating: silver
This should not affect overall usability or accessibility too much, but it can momentarily make focus location unclear.
Criterion 4.1.2 - Name, Role, Value: Silver
- Filter date picker: issues with attributes. Apparently due to manual implementation, the screen reader announces that the date picker is open, while the field itself is announced as collapsed because of its attributes.
Rating: silver
This is somewhat confusing for screen reader users, but not a severe issue.
Mindbreeze T2: Homepage german
Criterion 3.1.2 - Language of Parts: Silver
- On the German version of the site, the right-hand toolbar (filter criteria) contains a mix of German and English due to apparently missing translations, which are not marked with a lang attribute.
Rating: silber
This issue occurs frequently in a central part of the interface but should not significantly affect the comprehension for screen reader users.
Criterion 4.1.2 - Name, Role, Value: Bronze
- In the search results, the lang attribute is partially used incorrectly, for example lang="de,en".
Rating: bronze
This causes incorrect language detection by assistive technologies, but the impact is limited and does not prevent understanding of the content.
Mindbreeze T3: Search results
Criterion 1.3.1 - Info and Relationships: Silver
- Search results are visually and logically a list but are not marked up as such.
Rating: silver
This should not affect overall usability or accessibility too much, but it makes orientation and navigation less efficient for assistive technology users.
Criterion 2.4.3 - Focus Order: Silver
- When activating “load more results”, the focus remains on the button and the new items are inserted above it in the DOM. Because the focus is not moved, this may be less confusing in some cases. However, it can still be unclear for screen reader users what has changed and where the new content was added, as messages like “loading more results” and the total number of results do not clearly indicate that items were inserted above.
Rating: silver
This is not optimal, but users are likely to adapt to this behavior relatively quickly.
Mindbreeze T4: Add search tab
Criterion 1.4.10 - Reflow: Silver
- 1.4.10
In mobile view, the search tabs do not meet the reflow criterion, as users need to scroll in two directions to access the content.
Rating: silver
This should not affect overall usability or accessibility too much, but it reduces comfort and efficiency when navigating on smaller screens.
Mindbreeze T5: Save search
Mindbreeze T6: Help
Criterion 1.1.1 - Non-text Content: Invalid
- Alternative text for images is often incorrect, for example “rid18” or even the image file path.
Rating: not met
This issue occurs frequently and prevents screen reader users from understanding the purpose or content of the images.
Criterion 1.4.3 - Contrast (Minimum): Invalid
- Link text has insufficient contrast in focus state, using yellow text on a white background.
Rating: not met
The focus indicator is difficult to perceive, which significantly impacts keyboard users, and the issue should be easy to fix.
Criterion 2.4.3 - Focus Order: Bronze
- Images can be enlarged in a separate modal. The focus trap does not work: keyboard focus can move behind the modal, and the reading and focus order are incorrect because the modal is opened at a different position in the DOM. The modal can, however, be closed using the Escape key.
Rating: bronze
This is not ideal, but the page remains usable for most users despite the focus and order issues.
Criterion 4.1.2 - Name, Role, Value: Bronze
- Tree view: the treeview is apparently not implemented correctly. The screen reader does not announce hierarchy levels, nor the number of items or the current position within the set (e.g. “3 of 6”), as expected for a tree view component (see WAI-ARIA Treeview pattern: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/treeview/examples/treeview-navigation/
)
Rating: bronze
This makes navigation unnecessarily complicated for screen reader users, but the content itself remains accessible.
Mindbreeze T7: Settings
Criterion 2.1.2 - No Keyboard Trap: Silver
- In the settings modal, the focus trap does not work correctly when tabbing backwards. The date field can be reached and opened even though focus should remain within the modal.
Rating: silver
This is a minor issue that should not significantly affect overall usability.
Criterion 4.1.2 - Name, Role, Value: Silver
- The Mindbreeze container is focusable even though it is not interactive.
Rating: silver
This should not significantly affect usability, but it introduces unnecessary focus stops in the tab order.
Mindbreeze T8: Error handling
Criterion 4.1.3 - Status Messages: Bronze
- When an error occurs, focus moves to the close button of the error message, but the error message itself is not announced, for example via an ARIA live region. Users must manually navigate upward to find the message. In addition, the button is announced as a “cross” button, indicating incorrect alternative text.
Rating: bronze
Error feedback is more difficult and requires additional navigation, which makes handling errors more difficult for screen reader users, but the site can still be used.