26. May 2025 by Kamil Kuzminski Categories: News, Portfolio, Veello Theme

Veello Theme release 2.1

Veello Theme 2.1 is now compliant with the German BFSG law. We've addressed numerous accessibility improvements and enhanced our predefined themes to ensure your digital services are inclusive and legally compliant. Ready to meet the new standards with confidence.

What is BFSG?

The German Barrier-Free Digital Services Act (BFSG) introduces binding accessibility requirements for digital products, ensuring inclusive access for users with disabilities. Aligned with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, BFSG compliance will be mandatory for many businesses in Germany starting in 2025.

Veello Theme 2.1 is ready. We've resolved key accessibility issues, improved our predefined themes, and ensured full compliance with BFSG and WCAG 2.1 — so your digital services are both inclusive and legally sound.

Keyboard navigation across the website has been significantly improved.

What Has Changed?

With Veello Theme 2.1, we've introduced a comprehensive set of improvements focused on accessibility, usability, and compliance. These updates ensure that your digital interfaces are more inclusive, meet the BFSG and WCAG 2.1 standards, and deliver a better experience for all users. From semantic HTML enhancements to visual refinements, this release brings significant upgrades across core components of the theme.

Enhanced language switcher for better accessibility
Improved page layout headers for clearer structure
Automatic generation of alt attributes for images when missing
aria-label added to form fields with placeholders but no visible labels
Various CSS fixes and styling refinements
Proper ARIA attributes added to accordions
Improved mobile menu with full keyboard navigation support
Better color contrast for text and UI elements
Refined team content elements
Enhanced Google Maps integration
Improved testimonial component
Accessibility support enabled for sliders
Focus management added, configurable via design settings
… and some other minor changes.

The focus style can now be adjusted directly in the design settings.

All Themes Now WCAG-Compliant

We’re pleased to announce that all our themes have been updated with revised color schemes that meet the contrast requirements of the WCAG 2.1 AA standards. This ensures improved readability and accessibility for users with visual impairments across all supported themes. You can now confidently use any of the available themes knowing they align with current accessibility best practices.

Please note: The updated color schemes are available in newly installed themes. If you’ve previously imported a theme, manual color adjustments may still be required — see the section below for guidance.

25 Themes Fully Compatible with BFSG

All our themes are fully compatible with BFSG and can be imported with just one click. Stay tuned, as new themes are coming soon!

Browse All Themes

What You Need to Change

While Veello Theme 2.1 introduces extensive accessibility improvements, not all adjustments could be automated without impacting your existing design and content. To ensure full compliance with BFSG and WCAG 2.1, some updates must be made manually. Below is a short guide to help you address the remaining areas.

Use an Accessibility Testing Tool

To validate your implementation and ensure nothing is overlooked, we recommend using a professional accessibility auditing tool. axe DevTools – Web Accessibility Testing is available as a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox and provides clear, actionable insights to help you meet WCAG 2.1 and BFSG requirements.
Review Your Color Ratios

While we've improved the default color contrasts in Veello Theme 2.1, we could not automatically adjust the color settings in your custom design, as this could unintentionally alter your brand identity or layout. We recommend manually verifying that all text and interactive elements meet the required contrast ratios in your current theme configuration.
Update "alt" and "title" Attributes

Although the theme now generates alt attributes automatically when missing, it's still important to ensure that all images, links, and media elements have meaningful alt and title attributes where appropriate. This helps improve screen reader support and contributes to full accessibility compliance.

Use an accessibility testing tool to evaluate your website.

Portfolio Version 2.1 Released

Our Portfolio extension has received an important update in line with the new BFSG law. In this version, we’ve made significant improvements to ensure the extension is fully compliant with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), making it more accessible for all users. This update is designed to enhance the user experience by improving the accessibility of your portfolio, ensuring it meets the latest legal and web accessibility standards.

What About Contao 4.13 and Isotope eCommerce?

Although we have decided not to introduce new features into the Veello Theme for Contao 4.13 going forward, the latest accessibility improvements are essential for most websites. For this reason, we’ve released Veello Theme version 1.5 as a continuation of the 1.4 branch. If you're using Isotope eCommerce with Contao 4.13, you can safely update to this version to benefit from the latest accessibility enhancements while maintaining compatibility with your current setup.

Update to Veello Theme 2.1 Now

We encourage all users to update to Veello Theme version 2.1 to take advantage of the latest accessibility and usability improvements. The update process is designed to be smooth and should not cause any issues in your existing projects. However, if you encounter any unexpected behavior, please contact our support team immediately — we’re here to help and will resolve any problems as quickly as possible.

Reminder: To update your extensions, simply update the package in Contao Manager, just like you would with any other Contao extension! Keep your system up-to-date with ease.

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