All of the question types in Optimal Surveys meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards. It’s possible to build an accessible survey, as well as pre and post-study questions in tree testing, card sorting, and first-click testing.

Here are our tips on how to create a survey that’s accessible for your participants:

Keep matrix questions simple

Ideally, you want to create a matrix question that has less than 5 columns and 7 rows. This is dependent on the complexity of your questions and options, but with matrix questions, less is more! This makes it a lot easier for participants using screenreaders.

Make ranking questions optional for participants with screenreaders

Our ranking question functionality follows WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines and was approved by external accessibility experts, including a tester who is blind.

However, in our user testing, we found that people who were blind and relied on a screenreader were not able to complete the ranking question. If there is a possibility that your participants may rely on a screenreader, we recommend you make any ranking questions optional, or refrain from using them.

Use markdown sparingly

Using markdown in your questions (e.g. bold or italicized font, and tables or images in particular) add complexity to your questions and increase the cognitive load. Where you can, try to keep the formatting of your questions as simple as possible.

Include helpful alt text with images

Alt (alternative) text is the text that a screenreader will read out to a participant when they land on the image. It’s a good idea to edit this to include something helpful that will describe what is seen in the image.

One thing to note is that the logo image upload functionality doesn’t support alt text. If your survey must pass WCAG guidelines, don’t upload a logo.

Keep logic to a minimum

This is a nice-to-have, but if you can create your study without using logic, it’s easier for participants using screenreaders. This is because, without logic, one-question-per-page surveys have question numbering (i.e. question 2 of 10) so screenreader users can easily know what question they’re on .

A note on H1 headings

Optimal Surveys do not currently have an H1 heading functionality. While this is a WCAG 2.1 AA requirement, when we tested our surveys with people using assistive technologies, we found that the lack of a H1 heading didn’t restrict them from completing the survey.

If you come across a functionality that isn’t accessible in Surveys, we’d love to know about it so we can fix it. Email us at support@optimalworkshop.com or submit feedback in-app.