OpenMRS WCAG 2.1 AA Compliance

Software O3
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Hi,

it has been a while when we released WCAG related fixes to the following repositories: https://github.com/openmrs/openmrs-esm-patient-management/releases/tag/v8.4.0 https://github.com/openmrs/openmrs-esm-core/releases/tag/v6.3.0 https://github.com/openmrs/openmrs-esm-patient-chart/releases/tag/v10.2.0

We fixed the majority of issues, reducing its number from 60 to 20.

Have you been able to use the improved UI? Is there any difference that you noticed and that are worth of further investment?

@grace is there any interest in the community to make OpenMRS fully WCAG 2.1 AA compliant? If yes, then SolDevelo can consider making it happen by applying one of our services: https://soldevelo.com/services/accessibility-audit/

Please let me know your thoughts.

Regards,

Jakub.

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Hi @jslawinski! I’m not sure if there’s market demand to make OpenMRS fully WCAG 2.1 AA compliant (e.g. I’m honestly not sure if any of the governments comissioning vendors/orgs to implement OpenMRS have that requirement) - however, SolDevelo’s work on the accessibility report was amazing, and I’m hoping that more of the fixes/tasks can be taken up today during this week’s Mon/Tues in-person hackathon! I’ve added that as a topic for the hackathon at om.rs/25hackathon. Perhaps you’d like to lead or check-in with that group :slight_smile:

As an org - what countries does SolDevelo typically find require WCAG 2.1 AA compliance for healthcare tech?

From a quick Gemini search, it seems like:

  • India: The Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW 3.0) requires government websites to comply with WCAG 2.1 AA. @angshuonline or @akhilmalhotra have you run into this requirement for Bahmni?
  • Colombia: Has adopted web accessibility guidelines that are based on WCAG 2.1.

These are both interesting!

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Hi @grace . Thank you for including WCAG compatibility in the in-person hackathon. I hope a lot of good fixes will be produced during this time.

You pointed two extremely valid and meaningful issues:

  • lack of market demand to make OpenMRS fully WCAG 2.1 AA compliant
  • no strict requirements for such compliance from governments

The above are highly related, as compliance required by law should generate the market demand. However, healthcare tech like OpenMRS is usually used only by a limited number of people (like hospital employees), and thus the requirement to make it accessible to a broad audience is rather pointless.

The above in any case does not depreciate the work around OpenMRS WCAG compatibility, as good changes are good, regardless how many people notice that.

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Not yet. We have not yet been asked for WCAG compliance in any country where Bahmni is in use. But I’m interested to know which countries have/are in the process of mandating the WCAG.

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