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Accessibility in business messaging

Design every customer-facing message journey so people can perceive, operate, understand, and use it with the technology and input method they rely on. This includes chat widgets, IVR menus, RCS carousels, AI-agent replies, and unsubscribe flows. WCAG 2.2 is the practical reference for accessible digital experiences. EN 301 549 applies accessibility requirements to information and communication technology in Europe. The European Accessibility Act became enforceable in June 2025 for covered products and services. It is regulatory context, not a Devotel Orbit certification or a platform-wide compliance posture.

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Map the four WCAG principles to messaging

  • Perceivable: Add meaningful alt text to RCS cards and provide equivalent plain text when a rich message cannot be rendered. Do not put essential information only in an image, color, or audio clip.
  • Operable: Make chat controls and unsubscribe actions keyboard-usable, give people enough time, and avoid requiring one gesture or input method. For voice menus, provide a DTMF or keyboard equivalent for speech input where the journey requires one.
  • Understandable: Keep AI-agent replies in plain language, identify the next action, use predictable prompts, and tell people when a handoff or fallback is available.
  • Robust: Test the preferred and fallback channel with browsers, screen readers, mobile assistive technology, and speech or DTMF input. A rich card, speech recognizer, or widget failure should not remove the only path to completion.

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Tenant-owned controls in Orbit

Configure quiet hours with the called party’s timezone, supply plain-text fallbacks for rich messages, and use language detection in conversational AI so the interaction can stay understandable for the recipient. For speech-based IVR, define intent buckets and retain an equivalent keypad path. The IVR intents API is the shipped NLU surface for those tenant-owned intent buckets; using it does not certify the finished IVR as accessible. These controls are building blocks. Review the final copy, layout, timing, focus order, channel fallback, and assistive-technology behavior in the experience your customers actually use.

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What remains your responsibility

You own the final UX, testing, and legal interpretation for your service. Determine whether the European Accessibility Act, WCAG 2.2, EN 301 549, or another local requirement applies to your organization and audience. Test real journeys, including first contact, error recovery, handoff, and unsubscribe, across the channels you enable.