Accessibility in business messaging — Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for business messaging
Qué es Accessibility in business messaging?
Esta entrada está disponible actualmente solo en inglés.
Accessibility in business messaging means designing chat widgets, IVR menus, RCS carousels, AI-agent replies, and unsubscribe flows so people with disabilities can perceive, operate, understand, and use them. WCAG 2.2 provides the practical criteria; EN 301 549 applies those requirements to ICT products and services in Europe. The European Accessibility Act has been enforceable since June 2025, but each tenant remains responsible for its customer-facing experience and legal assessment.
More detail
The four WCAG principles map directly to messaging work. Perceivable content includes useful alt text for RCS cards and equivalent text when a visual cannot be displayed. Operable journeys include keyboard-friendly chat controls and an unsubscribe path that does not depend on a timed gesture or a single input method. Understandable AI-agent output uses plain language, predictable prompts, and clear next steps. Robust delivery provides a meaningful fallback when a channel, rich card, speech recognizer, or assistive technology cannot render the preferred format.
Tenant-owned controls can support an accessible implementation: configure quiet hours using the called party's timezone, provide plain-text fallbacks for rich messages, detect language in conversational AI, and give speech-based IVR intents a keyboard or DTMF equivalent. The shipped IVR NLU surface at /voice/ivr-intents is the substrate for defining those intent buckets; it does not by itself certify an IVR as accessible.
Orbit provides communication primitives and tenant controls, not a compliance certification. The tenant must review the final UX across devices, channels, languages, and assistive technologies, and obtain its own interpretation of WCAG 2.2, EN 301 549, and the European Accessibility Act for its service and audience.
Preguntas frecuentes
- Does the European Accessibility Act make every message accessible automatically?
- No. The Act is regulatory context for covered products and services, enforceable since June 2025. A tenant still needs to design, test, and operate its own customer-facing messaging experience against the requirements that apply to its service.
- What makes an AI agent accessible?
- An accessible AI agent communicates in clear, understandable language, preserves a usable text alternative to non-text content, supports the user's input method, and offers a reliable fallback or human path when the preferred channel or interaction cannot be completed.
See also
Build it on Orbit
Voice, messaging, email, video, and AI agents on one platform and one pay-as-you-go bill. Start free — no credit card required.