10 Ways to Make Your Website More Accessible
Nowadays, accessibility has become one of the key concerns for brands while designing a website. Previously, websites, applications, and games were designed and developed separately for disabled individuals. Nevertheless, nowadays, ‘Inclusive Designing’ is getting great recognition globally as websites and applications are made for everyone, including people with disabilities.
Creating an inclusive website is not a simple procedure, requiring proper skills and technical expertise is essential. That’s why it is imperative to choose a professional web design and development agency in Chicago to create a website that engages users and ideally represents your business.
Generally, web developers choose to build a website perfect for individuals with strong literacy skills. Sadly, only a small percentage of individuals have all such attributes, as not everyone is proficient. Therefore, poorly thought-out solutions don’t resolve the issue of accessibility.
Are you looking for the best ways to make your website accessible to users? Readout the article to discover effective ways to make your website and apps accessible for users.
Let’s explore them together!
- Including Graphics & UI Components
Besides including images, ensure all other graphics are easily accessible to users. For instance, if you use infographics and low-contrast icons on your website, people with vision impairment will find it daunting to look at it.
Surely, there can’t be an exact or perfect level of contrast for everyone, but it should be at 3: 1 to make your website appealing.
There are multiple tools available online to test your website’s contrast level. For example, an eye-dropper tool for testing is preferable.
- Give Accessible Names to Your Web Pages
Visitors with impaired hearing use assistive software like screen readers (a program that reads the full web page for them). Simply, the software reads the content available on the web.
So, to make your website content easily readable, ensure they can access only the bits they want to know.
- Include Proper Alt Text for Image
Add appropriate alt text for the image to help readers understand the message you are trying to convey. It is quite essential for important images, including infographics.
Therefore, while creating the alt text, include the message you intend to convey, and if the image includes text, the text should be added to the alt text.
Remember, if an image is included for decoration, you can leave alt text empty as it will not distract readers.
- Give Unique and Descriptive Names to Your Links
When you add links to your content that accurately describe where the link will take you, using ‘Click Here’ is not well descriptive and mostly ineffective for a screen reader user.
Like sighted users scan the page for linked text, visually impaired individuals can also scan the page. So, add descriptive text and make it easier for the readers to read.
For example, if you point visitors to the ‘About Us’ page, don’t add ‘Click Here’ content. Instead, the content should be ‘About Us’ to make users read more about your company.
- Carefully Choose Colors
Red-green color deficiency is the most common type of color deficiency that affects around 8% of the population. That’s why using only these colors on your website or while writing the content can prevent users from understanding your message.
Therefore, choosing color carefully and all the visual indicators (including question marks and asterisks) is imperative.
Multiple tools are available online to evaluate color contrast according to your website theme. Such tools will help you choose colors for people with low vision or several types of color blindness.
- Allow Users to Enlarge Font Size
People with low vision can’t read small texts. That’s why you should use a special font setting while browsing your website. Offering an alternate style sheet with the ability to enlarge font size without disturbing page layout should make it easier for the readers to read your content.
Moreover, make sure your Call-to-action buttons have a large font size and are easily visible to everyone. Besides, the added CTAs (Call to Action) (Call to Action) button should be visible to visually impaired individuals.
- Add Keyboard Navigation
Navigation is a major challenge for visually impaired individuals or people with low vision. As they can’t browse the site or use the mouse, you must incorporate keyword navigation on your website.
Blind individuals use Braille keyboards to access a website. That’s why; you make sure disabled individuals can easily access your website’s interactive elements, including.
- Anchor Text
- URL
- Forms
- Dialog Box
- CTAs
- Widgets
- Drop-down Menu
Make JavaScript widgets accessible with the keyboard, as keyboard navigation shouldn’t be an issue for the users. All such features can only be added by the expert web design and development team of the Chicago web design agency for better and desired results.
You can also look for alternative options, including adding HTML links, form fields, and buttons to ensure your website elements are keyboard accessible.
- Use Placeholder Text in Forms
Online forms use placeholder text to describe multiple elements to save space.
Nevertheless, placeholder text is mostly gray, and visually impaired persons can’t read it due to the low contrast.
Moreover, it’s a non-label text, meaning screen readers will mostly skip placeholder text. As a result, blind users won’t be able to read the text.
So, the best way is to replace the placeholder text with <label> tag or an ARIA attribute that does not go away. Don’t forget to use the highest text and background contrast.
- Avoid Using Maximum Tables
Usually, screen readers inform blind users about the number of rows and columns a table has. Sometimes, it becomes daunting for the screen readers to read the tabular data in a similar flow according to the visual orders.
So, it is preferable to use CSS for data presentation. Also, use the correct headers for each row and column while adding a table.
If you want to provide additional context to your disabled users, add an HTML5 table caption.
- Dynamic Content Should be Accessible
When content updates dynamically (i.e., without refreshing the page), screen readers may not be aware. It mostly includes lightboxes, pop-ups, modal dialogs, overlays, and in-page details. Keyboard-only users are stuck in a page overlay.
You can make this function easily accessible by including the ARIA role and alerts. Moreover, adding a front-end development framework can also support accessibility.
Ensure added video players don’t play automatically and can be used with a keyboard. Besides, the added videos should have closed captioning and transcript options for hearing-impaired individuals. Don’t forget to check the accessibility for unique widgets, including the drag-drop option, calendar picker, etc.
Conclusion
Creating an accessible website makes your business accessible, and it’s morally the best thing to do for special people.
So, follow the tips mentioned above and always keep accessibility in mind.
Hire a professional web development agency in Chicago, IL, to create an accessible website with striking features.
