The Accessibility Directive and the new Swedish accessibility law

The Accessibility Directive will be active as Swedish law starting June 28, 2025. We will go through what it means for you as a provider of consumer services.

What does the Accessibility Directive mean?

The Accessibility Directive is a directive established within the EU to set standards for accessibility. The purpose is to improve the functioning of the EU's internal market, create a more inclusive society, and facilitate independent living. The directive is included in the Act (2023:254) on the accessibility of certain products and services, which will come into effect on June 28, 2025.

The principles of the Directive - EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.1

The directive is intended to ensure that products and services meet the accessibility requirements set out in the European standard EN 301 549, which is largely composed of the criteria in WCAG 2.1, an international standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The criteria in WCAG cover not only the design and presentation of content, but also coding.

Primarily, WCAG consists of four principles with guidelines and, in summary, they advocate that a website or digital service should be perceptible, manageable, understandable and robust.

WCAG 2.1 contains 78 criteria that are divided into three levels:

• A: Level A contains the highest priority criteria.
• AA: Level AA is the basis for the requirements in EN 310 549 and thus also for the legal requirements.
• AAA: Level AAA is the highest level of ambition and one should consider meeting these requirements as well.

Which products and services are affected?

The directive should cover products and services that are primarily intended for consumer use and that could be considered to fullfill functions for a functioning digital society. Examples of such products and services include computers, smartphones, websites, mobile applications, ticket machines for passenger transport, e-readers, and electronic payment services.

AntiStress

A digital treatment support with high emphasis on seamless user experience for individuals suffering from stress-related mental illness.

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Beyond legal requirements - expand your customer base

Studies compiled by Statistics Sweden and the Public Health Agency have shown that around 20 percent of Sweden's population has some form of disability to varying degrees. As an additional argument for accessibility, beyond humanity and legal requirements, it also opens up market opportunities through a wider customer base when more people can use the service or product.

Breas

Breas' web presence is delivered with high accessibility in mind to target elder people in need of respiratory assistance.

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A smooth ride towards accessibility

To evaluate whether accessibility requirements are met, a combination of manual and automated reviews is required. Accessibility adaptation should not be a process where you merely check off items on a checklist; it must be tested with real people. When we work on testing and usability analysis, we adopt a user-centered approach to identify flaws that cannot be found solely through checklists and standards.

Get in touch with us if you want to improve accessibility. We help you with analysis of your existing services, identify accessibility issues and implement countermeasures to comply with regulations.