Certification Report for Zero Project International

Website Owners: Essl Foundation MGE gemeinnützige Privatstiftung
Website Domain: zeroproject.org
Certificate Status: Silver
Certification Date: 2025-04-24

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:

The tested sample has a very strong orientation towards accessibility. The international website zeroproject.org , the Austrian website austria.zeroproject.org and the subdomain scaling-solutions.zeroproject.org largely comply with the international web content accessibility guidelines WCAG 2.2 A and WCAG 2.2 AA, which means that a WACA Silver certificate can be awarded.

Conferencing tools for the Zero Project Conference, such as the agenda spreadsheet and the embedded YouTube conference livestream, were not included in the scope of the audit, as these tools are only online for the annual conference and are therefore not a permanent part of the website.

Evaluated test sample

WACA deviations and WACA gradations

    Zero Project International: T01 Home EN

    Criterion 1.3.1 - Info and Relationships: Silver

    Überschriften: Die Hierarchie ist nicht ganz optimal aber tolerierbar für silber

    Headings: The hierarchy is not quite optimal but tolerable for silver

    Zero Project International: T02 Search result

    Criterion 1.3.1 - Info and Relationships: Silver

    Die Labels der Suche Eingabefelder beim “Advanced Filter” sind nicht ganz optimal aber grundsätzlich vorhanden

    The labels of the search input fields in the “Advanced Filter” are not quite optimal but basically present

    Zero Project International: T03 Contact

    Criterion 1.3.5 - Identify Input Purpose: Silver

    Use autocomplete attributes with meaningful values
    https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#input-purposes
    (Autocomplete is not prevented, so silver is tolerable)

    Zero Project International: T04 ZeroCon25

    Zero Project International: T05 AI Knowledge Hub

    Zero Project International: T06 Downloads

    Criterion 2.4.4 - Link Purpose (In Context): Silver

    Im Linktext wird tlw. nicht ganz ausreichend kommuniziert, dass das Linkziel auf ein Dokument (z.B. PDF) zeigt. Im Linktext könnte z.B. am Ende (PDF) ergänzt werden (durch den Seitenkontext aber relativ klar deshalb tolerierbar für Silber

    The link text sometimes does not sufficiently communicate that the link target points to a document (e.g., PDF). The link text could, for example, be supplemented with (PDF) at the end (but this is relatively clear due to the page context, and therefore tolerable for silver.

    Zero Project International: T07 News

    Zero Project International: T08 News detail

    Zero Project International: T09 Team

    Zero Project International: T10 Home Scaling Solutions EN

    Criterion 1.3.1 - Info and Relationships: Silver

    Die Verwendung von fieldset und legend beim Element “What we do” ist nicht korrekt, stört aber auch nicht sehr

    The use of fieldset and legend in the “What we do” element is not correct, but it is not very disturbing

    Zero Project International: T11 Startseite Zero Project Austria DE

    Zero Project International: T12 Unternehmensdialoge DE

    Criterion 1.2.2 - Captions (Prerecorded): Silver

    Videos wurden stichprobenartig überprüft: automatisierte Untertitel der Videos ist tlw. nicht optimal, durch das zusätzlich Gebärdensprache Insert (bei manchen Video vorhanden) aber weitgehend ausreichend

    Videos were randomly checked: automated subtitles of the videos are partly not optimal, but due to the additional sign language insert (available in some videos) it is largely sufficient

    Criterion 1.2.3 - Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded): Silver

    An wenigen Stellen bei den Videos ist nicht gleich klar wer spricht. Die SprecherIn wird tlw. nur visuell über Inserts eingeblendet und nicht zusätzlich auditiv. In der Regel handelt es sich bei den Videos aber um Veranstaltungen mit Moderation. Die Moderation kündigt in der Regel die Sprecher auch auditiv an.

    In a few places in the videos, it's not immediately clear who is speaking. The speaker is sometimes only visually introduced via inserts, with no additional audio. However, the videos generally depict events with a moderator. The moderator usually also announces the speakers audibly.

    Criterion 1.2.5 - Audio Description (Prerecorded): Silver

    see 1.2.3

    Criterion 3.1.2 - Language of Parts: Silver

    Manche Texte, Attribute Werte in englisch z.B. “Close” bei modalen Overlays

    Some texts, attribute values ​​in English e.g. “Close” in modal overlays

    Zero Project International: T13 ALC Award DE

    Zero Project International: T14 Random sample EN