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Digital Trust Index
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DIGITAL TRUST INDEX 2024 THE STATE OF DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY IN EUROPE

Digital services are the backbone of our economy and society. Trust in the
digital world is crucial. The Digital Trust Index by Craftzing assesses the
trustworthiness of European websites, starting with a key question:
How accessible is the web today?

Read the report

On this page
 1. 1. Summary
 2. 2. Impact
 3. 3. Results
 4. 4. Common issues
 5. 5. Methodology
 6. 6. The path forward
 7. 7. References


1. SUMMARY 94% OF EUROPEAN WEBSITES FAIL ACCESSIBILITY REQUIREMENTS, LEAVING
MILLIONS AT A DISADVANTAGE

 * Over 260,000 European websites were tested for accessibility issues. For
   Belgium, 7,408 pages were assessed.

 * All tested countries score badly. Norway, Finland and Sweden score best,
   while Czechia, Romania and Hungary close ranks. Belgium ranks seventh, in the
   middle of the pack.

 * The most common issues are insufficient colour contrast and a lack of
   descriptive text for images, links, and buttons. These problems pose
   significant obstacles. Yet, they are relatively easy to fix.

 * One year from now (June 28th, 2025) the European Accessibility Act enforces
   accessibility requirements for essential products and services. European
   countries are clearly not ready for this. Companies and organisations may be
   fined if they don’t comply.

 * The Digital Trust Index 2024 is an annual research initiative conducted by
   the digital advisory firm Craftzing to measure the trustworthiness of digital
   platforms. Each quarter, the index focuses on one trust aspect. This edition
   focuses on accessibility. It’s the first time a research has been conducted
   on a sample of European websites this large.


2. IMPACT DIGITAL TRUST IS ABOUT EVERYONE PARTICIPATING IN OUR DIGITAL SOCIETY

Technology is permeating every part of our society. From making a doctor’s
appointment and ordering food, to using e-gyms, banking, or meeting new people
and engaging with culture and entertainment. Digital solutions are becoming
increasingly essential. They offer efficiency and improvements for both
companies and users. But not all users benefit equally.

Not everyone is able to quickly adopt new applications and keep track of a
multitude of digital services. Is an application easy to use and understand?
Does it add value? And is it built with accessibility in mind, not excluding
anyone?

Over 100 million Europeans [1], one in four adults, have some form of
disability. Mobility, visual, hearing, cognitive, and other impairments, whether
permanent or temporary, are common.

If we want people to fully trust a digital society, we need to make sure that
our digital products and services are accessible and trustworthy. Europe is
contributing to this effort with the European Accessibility Act [2]. This act
mandates that companies and organisations providing essential digital services
and products meet accessibility requirements by June 28th, 2025.


3. RESULTS EUROPE IS NOT READY

So we wondered: how is Europe doing so far, with the Accessibility Act becoming
a reality one year from now?

According to our research, European companies and organisations are far from
ready. We tested 260,000 homepages of European websites using an automated tool
that validates these websites against a sub-set of WCAG requirements. 94% of all
tested websites fail at least one of our tests, one in four fail more than
three.

European websites

94% Fail

of European websites fail to meet accessibility requirements, excluding many
users.

Fail

Pass



When ranking the data on the percentage of a country’s dataset that fails at
least one test, Nordic countries slightly outperform the rest of Europe.
However, no country has an acceptable level of websites free from accessibility
issues.



Automated tests are limited. About a third of accessibility requirements can be
tested this way, and not all tests give conclusive results for every page. Our
results don’t reflect a website’s true compliancy with accessibility
requirements, but do show real accessibility issues that have to be fixed in
order to become compliant.

We’ve ran a total of 16 million tests on our dataset of homepages, of which 6.4
million returned conclusive results: fail or pass. One in eight conclusive tests
failed.

The following table ranks the eighteen tested countries on percentage of
websites that fail at least one test from least fails (Norway with 87.68%) to
most fails (Hungary with 96.31%).

Ranked test results per member state Rank Member state Homepages tested Pages
with failed tests (%) 1 Norway 4,439 87.68 2 Finland 4,670 88.05 3 Sweden 8,361
89.28 4 Austria 7,621 92.36 5 Netherlands 30,392 93.11 6 Germany 60,565 93.97 7
Belgium 7,408 94.24 8 France 22,870 94.35 9 Denmark 10,088 94.7 10 Slovakia
4,400 95.16 11 Spain 12,090 95.17 12 Portugal 4,551 95.32 13 Greece 7,926 95.6
14 Italy 21,721 95.63 15 Poland 22,935 95.73 16 Czechia 11,308 95.76 17 Romania
10,749 96.15 18 Hungary 7,985 96.31



The following table shows how many homepages failed multiple of our tests. Each
test can have many failures, or violations, against it. For example: a design
that uses very low contrast, hard to read colour combinations will most likely
have many violations against the 'colour contrast' test.

Multiple failed test results ≥ 1 failed test (%) ≥ 2 failed tests (%) ≥ 3 failed
tests (%) ≥ 5 failed tests (%) 93.81 40.49 26.89 11.44




4. COMMON ISSUES THE SPOTLIGHT ON COMMON ACCESSIBILITY HURDLES

Every country in our dataset returned the same list of most failed tests. All of
these pose real obstacles to a wide range of users, with or without
disabilities. Most of them, however, are relatively easy to fix by people that
have knowledge of accessibility. All of them can be prevented by building
products and services with digital inclusion in mind.


COLOUR CONTRAST

Ensure all text elements have sufficient colour contrast


LINK NAME

Links must have discernible text


IMAGE ALT

Images must have alternate text


BUTTON NAME

Buttons must have discernible text


PAGE LANGUAGE

<html> element must have a lang attribute


DISTINGUISHABLE LINKS

Links must be distinguishable without relying on colour




COLOUR CONTRASTLOW CONTRAST TEXT

This rule checks for elements with insufficient colour contrast. Colours that
are close together results in a lower contrast, making content harder to read.
The threshold for (easily) readable text depends on a person’s eye sight, colour
perception, etc. External factors, like bright sunlight, also influence
readability. WCAG calculates this contrast as a ratio and defines minima for
websites to meet. Readable content is a basic requirement for accessible
websites, but also the most failed test according to our research.

66%

Test completion rate

40 / 60

Fail / pass ratio

71%

Pages failed this test


LINK NAMEMISSING DISCERNIBLE TEXT FOR LINKS

This rule checks that each link has an accessible name that can be read by
assistive technology like screen readers. For example, when a link only contains
an icon and has no name that can be programmatically determined, it lacks
discernible text. It’s important for links to have an accessible name and
clearly state their purpose.

97%

Test completion rate

40 / 60

Fail / pass ratio

63%

Pages failed this test


IMAGE ALTMISSING ALTERNATIVE TEXT FOR IMAGES

This rule checks that images either have an accessible name or are marked up as
decorative. People who cannot see an image can have the text alternative read
aloud using synthesized speech. Alt-texts are crucial for people with visual
impairments.

94%

Test completion rate

25 / 75

Fail / pass ratio

33%

Pages failed this test




BUTTON NAMEMISSING DISCERNIBLE TEXT FOR BUTTONS

This rule is identical to ‘missing discernible text for links’ but applied to
buttons.

64%

Test completion rate

20 / 80

Fail / pass ratio

18%

Pages failed this test


PAGE LANGUAGEMISSING DOCUMENT LANGUAGE

This rule checks that an HTML page has a lang attribute. It defines the language
of the page and helps people using assistive technology like screen readers to
get information read out in the correct language.

99%

Test completion rate

10 / 90

Fail / pass ratio

12%

Pages failed this test


DISTINGUISHABLE LINKSINDISTINGUISHABLE LINKS IN TEXT BLOCKS

This rule looks at common ways to distinguish links from surrounding text, such
as underlining. If the link only differs in colour from the surrounding text, it
must have a contrast difference of at least 3:1. This ensures low vision users
and users with a colour vision deficiency can easily distinguish links in blocks
of text.

45%

Test completion rate

20 / 80

Fail / pass ratio

11%

Pages failed this test

Need help setting up a digital accessibility program?

Get in touch (opens in new tab)


5. METHODOLOGY ABOUT THE RESEARCH

The Digital Trust Index 2024 is an annual research initiative conducted by the
digital advisory firm Craftzing to measure the trustworthiness of digital
platforms. Each quarter, the index focuses on one trust aspect. This edition
focuses on accessibility.

From our experience optimising digital services and testing them with users, we
are daily confronted with barriers that people encounter because digital
services are not well designed and do not meet accessibility requirements.


HOW WE TESTED

To get an overview of Europe's accessibility problem, we needed to test hundreds
of thousands of websites. This cannot be done manually, so we looked for an
automated solution. We were inspired by the WebAIM Million project [3].

The list of domain names comes from the Tranco list [4], a research-oriented
ranking for top sites. We extracted country codes and categorised the results
per European country. With testing and scraping tools we have built a research
application that can test thousands of homepages of EU websites with Deque's axe
API [5]. Axe’s rules are mapped on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG) version 2.1, level A and AA, from which the European standard EN 301 549
draws heavily.

Why are some EU countries not in the list? Because we had fewer than 4,000
websites from these countries in our sample to test, which would result in
significant differences compared to other countries, making it difficult to
compare the results across EU countries.

The following table lists the eighteen countries we tested in the first column,
and shows the TLDs we’ve included for them in the second column. The third and
final column shows the number of domains we’ve accepted and included in the
results, 260,079 in total.

Number of domains per country after filtering Member state Top Level Domains
(TLDs) Domains Germany .de, .bayern, .berlin, .hamburg, .nrw, .koeln, .cologne,
.ruhr, .saarland 60,565 Netherlands .nl, .amsterdam, .frl 30,392 Poland .pl
22,935 France .fr, .paris, .gp, .gf, .mq, .yt, .re, .mf 22,870 Italy .it 21,721
Spain .es 12,090 Czechia .cz 11,308 Romania .ro 10,749 Denmark .dk 10,088 Sweden
.se 8,361 Hungary .hu 7,985 Greece .gr 7,926 Austria .at 7,621 Belgium .be,
.brussels, .vlaanderen 7,408 Finland .fi 4,670 Portugal .pt 4,551 Norway .no
4,439 Slovakia .sk 4,400




6. THE PATH FORWARD YOU SHOULDN'T JUST CONSIDER ACCESSIBILITY; YOU SHOULD START
WITH IT.

One in four European adults has some form of disability. For many, participating
in the digital society is challenging. Most organizations are unaware of this
and are missing out on potential revenue and impact. Imagine the growth that can
be achieved by developing digital services for everyone.

Today, accessibility is often an afterthought, something considered at the end
of a digital project. That’s not the right approach. It will require significant
rework and budget to fix. You shouldn't just consider accessibility; you should
start with it.

Organisations that create an environment that stimulates inclusion have higher
digital trust and avoid legal risks. Including accessibility at the start of
your processes minimises effort and maximises outcome.

Craftzing believes that companies should be fined when their digital services
are not accessible. Read the opinion of our CEO Roeland Tegenbos in Belgian
newspaper De Tijd. Since no one likes to be fined, this should encourage the
right action: building a digital society where everyone can participate.

Embrace the European Accessibility Act as an opportunity to enhance user
experience and expand your reach. Let's build a more accessible future.

Need help setting up a digital accessibility program?

Get in touch (opens in new tab)


7. REFERENCES RESOURCES

[1]
European Council - Disability in the EU: facts and figures
[2]
European Commission - European Accessibility Act
[3]
The WebAIM Million - report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages
[4]
Tranco

Victor Le Pochat, Tom Van Goethem, Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob, Maciej Korczyński,
and Wouter Joosen. 2019. "Tranco: A Research-Oriented Top Sites Ranking Hardened
Against Manipulation," Proceedings of the 26th Annual Network and Distributed
System Security Symposium (NDSS 2019). https://doi.org/10.14722/ndss.2019.23386

[5]
axe-core - Accessibility engine for automated tests
Digital Trust Index

Research to measure the trust qualities of European digital platforms.

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