Chat module's accessibility problems

Service Hub Tips, Tricks & Best Practices
1

We, as Funka Nu AB, are experts in digital accessibility. Here is a list of our quick findings of HubSpot’s chat functionality:

  1. Iframe title needs to be editable.
  2. When not open, small tabfocus is visible on button but opens a wrong object.
  3. Next tab gives different visual focus but opens the chat.
  4. If we choose next element it opens up, but that link doesn’t have any name.
  5. Focus in fake input element is Ok and NVDA makes a notification but doesn’t say anything.
  6. Nesting of span and div, which is wrong.
  7. Alt-attribute on <div>, which is wrong.
  8. Aria-haspopup with wrong value (false instead of true). Could have aria-expanded instead.
  9. Messages are read as clickable in NVDA, but its not.
  10. Aria-label on div with text messages. Wrong for both user and bot but may work in some browser/screenreader combinations.
  11. No tabfocus on button in message.
  12. No tabfocus at all in chat module.
  13. To low contrast between text and red background color, same for red button and background color.
  14. Red link in text.
  15. Aria-label in input type=text (Enter mail address).
  16. In Jaws with FF its not possible to get focus in the chat, not even at start button.
  17. Chrome works much better even if its not easy to use when you just have focus in message input.
  18. Its not possible to close chat with Esc.
  19. Aria-live is missing or does not work properly so the whole purpose of the chat is missing.
2

Hey @Umut, Thanks for surfacing these issues.

I wanted to refer you to this related post: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/APIs-Integrations/WCAG-2-0-and-Chatbot/m-p/460082

I have reported also reported this to the team and then will investigate. Will update here once there is more info!

Thanks,
Kristen

3

Hi @kvlschaefer ,

Thanks for posting a link to that post but WCAG 2.0 is from 2008. That’s no longer a valid acccessibility target in 2022.

You should be compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA, at minimum.

4

Hi @Umut,

I appreciate your commitment to accessibility. I apologize for any frustration or business impact this is causing. While WCAG standards are voluntary and not a legal requirement for companies such as HubSpot, we are always working on making our product more accessible.

If you have specific feedback for the product team regarding accessibility I would recommend posting your suggestions in our ideas forum.

Our product team, who monitors the forum regularly, can read your specific use case and understand why this would be a useful functionality or change, as well as your use case.

Thank you,

Kristen

5

Hi @kvlschaefer,

Here is some background information. I work for Funka. A world-renowned accessibility company. Funka works together with many research organizations and governmental institutions/bodies on researching for, and participating the standardization of accessibility standards, such as W3C and European Union.

What we provided you above should be taken very seriously. Not just because it is coming from Funka, but it is also because you are wrong on your deduction of WCAG not being a legal requirement. You do have a legal requirement for being compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA and EN 301 549 since some of your European customers do need to be compliant with these guidelines. Read more here (or anywhere else by searching for EN 301 549 online): https://www.funka.com/en/research-and-innovation/standardisation/arkiv---standardiseringsarbete/accessibility-requirements-for-public-procurement/

In about 3 years, all your European customers will have the same requirement, not just some.

Because of accessibility problems, we couldn’t use HubSpot’s web-based tools and bounced around your organisation to share our findings and finally asked to write them here. I am not going to write them elsewhere. You are welcome to copy/paste them wherever you like.

We love the core of HubSpot but the web-based tools didn’t work for us since they all have accessibility problems. We asked repeatedly for a communications channel to be able to effectively communicate these to HubSpot for the benefit of us, HubSpot, all your customers and ultimately all end users, potentially reaching millions of them. Community was where we ended up. Please search in your organization for finding who is responsible from this topic in HubSpot. Funka is happy to provide more information and work with HubSpot to remediate all these problems.

Umut

6

Hi @Umut,

Thank you for your valuable feedback. We take it very seriously and appreciate you for reaching out to us regarding this matter.

Becoming compliant is a multi-step process and as such, we do not have a specific accessibility roadmap at this time that we can share with customers.

I will update this thread when I have further information.

Thank you,

Kristen

7

Hi,

Is the web chat now compliant with WCAG 2.0 AA standards, or are there any updates on plans to achieve compliance?

8

Any updates? The European law is coming, but we haven’t seen any progress yet.

9

Hi @nazanian and thanks for reaching out to the HubSpot Community!
I understand that you’d like to know is the live chat is compliant with WCAG 2.0 AA standards. Please let me know if that’s not the case.
I’ll look into this internally and will keep you updated as soon as I have more information.

Thank you so much for your patience, I truly appreciate it!
Bérangère

10

Yes @BérangèreL I’m talking about the chat web componente. We have hired a consultant agency to help us to adapt our website to WCAG 2.2. and the web chat component raises some issues that don’t respect some WCAG 2.2. guideline. Any help on this matter will be very appreciated. If we can not solve it, we will be forced to unpublish the web chat component.

11

Hi @nazanian and thank you so much for providing this additional information.
We appreciate your commitment to accessibility. Unfortunately HubSpot doesn’t currently meet WCAG standards.
We understand that these are commonly accepted standards for website accessibility but, at least for now, they are voluntary standards and compliance is not a legal requirement for HubSpot.
Please know that I’ve shared your valuable feedback with our internal team for their consideration.

Thank you again for your thoughtful input and your commitment to making the web more accessible.
Bérangère