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accessibilitywcag

Is there an exception in the WCAG standards for "quizzes"?

(First, I want to say that I am very much in favor of accessibility in general.)

There is a page on our website whose entire purpose is to quiz a student on what is depicted in a picture. That is the central activity on that page. Obviously, that won't work for blind people. The picture supports zooming, color blindness, and high contrast so as many people with vision problems as possible can use the page.

If I were to describe the picture in alt text or aria then I'm sure some students will discover that and be able to easily cheat. I do have alt text on the picture describing it in general terms.

I thought I read that there is an exception in the WCAG guidelines for "quizzes" but I have been looking for it without success. Can someone point me to where in the standard this situation is addressed? We are trying to pass as much of Section 508 as possible and have an explanation for anything we can't achieve.

Solution

  • You are probably thinking of the third bullet point in the list of exceptions for WCAG 1.1.1

    • Test: If non-text content is a test or exercise that would be invalid if presented in text, then text alternatives at least provide descriptive identification of the non-text content.

    Is there an alternative way to test the student for this question? Or if the test question is purely visual, does a student have the option of opting out of the question without a penalty of their test score?