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Practical guides to digital accessibility (RGAA, WCAG, European Accessibility Act), based on official sources, plus a watch on rule changes.

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• October 20, 2026

  aria-label: when to use it and when to avoid it

  When should you use aria-label? When an element has no accessible name, or an inaccurate one, and no visible content in the DOM can be referenced to name it. aria-label is primarily for assistive technologies such as screen readers. The textbook case is a button that contains nothing but an SVG icon. If visible text already labels the element, reference that text instead; and on some structural roles, aria-label is simply not supported. This guide walks through what the attribute does, when it helps, when it hurts, and how the first rule of ARIA applies, with code examples (including one from MDN), drawing on MDN's documentation and, for the first rule of ARIA, on the W3C document "Using ARIA".

• October 18, 2026

  RGAA compliance status: partial, full or non-compliant explained

  Your RGAA compliance status, partial or full, comes down to a simple calculation. According to the official pages on RGAA legal obligations, a service is fully compliant if all RGAA control criteria are met, partially compliant if at least 50% of those criteria are met, and non-compliant if fewer than 50% are met or if there is no audit result still valid to measure them. This status must appear in your accessibility statement. You still need to know how the percentage is calculated, which criteria count, and what a valid audit actually covers. Below are the rules as those official pages describe them, followed by a clearly fictitious worked example.

• October 16, 2026

  Mandatory accessibility statement link in France? What the homepage mention and « Accessibilité » page require

  In France, the homepage of an online public communication service must display one of three mentions defined by the RGAA, the French accessibility framework: « Accessibilité : totalement conforme » (fully compliant), « Accessibilité : partiellement conforme » (partially compliant) or « Accessibilité : non conforme » (non-compliant). The wording you use depends on whether a currently valid audit result exists and on the share of RGAA control criteria your site meets, with a threshold at 50%. The mention may be a link to the « Accessibilité » page or to the accessibility statement. If you are searching for the mandatory accessibility statement link in France, the precise rule is this: the mention is mandatory and making it a link is optional. The dedicated « Accessibilité » page must be directly reachable from the homepage and from any page of the site, and it holds the accessibility statement and contains, or links to, the multi-year accessibility plan and the current year's action plan. This guide sets out these rules as published by DINUM, the French government's digital agency, on the official RGAA website, then turns them into concrete checks. These obligations apply to services within the RGAA's scope: the official site covers that in a separate page, « Rappel du champ d'application », which you should read to confirm whether your organisation is concerned.

• October 15, 2026

  Multi-year accessibility plan in France (RGAA): duration, content, annual action plan and publication

  In France, the multi-year accessibility plan (schéma pluriannuel de mise en accessibilité) is the document in which an entity sets out its digital accessibility policy. According to the official RGAA page dedicated to this obligation, it covers a period of three years at most, it describes both the organisation in place and the compliance work on online services, and it is broken down each year into an action plan. The plan and the action plan for the current year must be available online on the entity's website, published in an accessible format, and linked from the accessibility statement. This guide walks through what the multi-year plan must contain, explains how it fits with the annual action plan, and shows where and how to publish it, so you can write or review your own.

• October 14, 2026

  RGAA for French local authorities: accessibility duties and where to start

  How does the RGAA apply to French local authorities? The short answer comes in three parts. Article 47 of French Law No. 2005-102 of 11 February 2005 makes online public communication services (websites, intranets, extranets, mobile apps, the application or interactive part of digital street furniture) subject to the accessibility obligation, starting with those of legal entities governed by public law; the official scope page also names local authorities explicitly, in a transitional provision. Your accessibility policy must be set out in a multi-year plan (schéma pluriannuel) lasting no more than three years and broken down into annual action plans. Finally, the multi-year plan and the current year's action plan are published online, in an accessible format, and linked from the accessibility statement. This article relies on the two official pages of accessibilite.numerique.gouv.fr covering the scope of the obligation and the multi-year plan, then suggests a working order for a local authority starting from scratch.

• October 9, 2026

  RGAA legal obligation: who must comply with French accessibility rules?

  The RGAA legal obligation requires many organizations to make their digital services accessible to people with disabilities. Defined by Article 47 of the French law of February 11, 2005, this legal requirement goes beyond state administrations. It also applies to specific private sector entities and covers a wide range of digital formats, from websites to mobile applications. Here are the exact criteria to determine regarding the RGAA legal obligation who must comply with the rules published by the DINUM.

• October 9, 2026

  axe-core updates to version 4.14.0

  Version 4.14.0 of the axe-core accessibility testing engine has been released. This update brings performance improvements, enables a new rule by default, and fixes several false positives.

• October 2, 2026

  Accessibility observatory — 2026-10

  Across 12994 sites analysed in 9 sectors, the average automatically measured RGAA compliance score is 88.3%.

• September 5, 2026

  Accessibility observatory — 2026-09

  Across 7247 sites analysed in 9 sectors, the average automatically measured RGAA compliance score is 87%.

• August 7, 2026

  axe-core 4.13.0 Release

  Version 4.13.0 of the axe-core testing engine has been released, succeeding version 4.12.1.

• August 2, 2026

  Accessibility observatory — 2026-08

  Across 1279 sites analysed in 9 sectors, the average automatically measured RGAA compliance score is 86%.

• July 18, 2026

  Welcome to the Conformly blog: our accessibility rules watch

  This blog tracks the official sources of accessibility rules and explains every change. First marker: Conformly's scan engine currently runs on axe-core 4.12.1 (WCAG 2.1 and 2.2, levels A/AA).