Every business owner wants their website to attract as many potential customers as possible. Companies should be aware that millions of web users have disabilities and limitations that prevent them from accessing certain websites. For that reason, business websites should be designed to be as accessible and user-friendly as possible. This will help companies reach a wider audience and increase sales and earning potential.
Fortunately, there are many simple ways to help ensure that your website can be used by everyone.
So, with this in mind, here are some useful tips on how to create an accessible website.
Make your site keyboard-friendly
Fortunately, there is an extensive range of assistive technology available to help people with disabilities navigate the web. However, many of these technologies use keyboard-only navigation. To be accessible, websites must, therefore, be keyboard-friendly and designed to work correctly without the use of a mouse.
According to the Center for Persons with Disabilities – “A keyboard user often uses the Tab key to navigate through different elements on a web page.”
To make your website accessible, you should start by making sure that the main elements of your web pages can be accessed via the Tab key. You can easily test this by checking whether you are able to access all elements of your site using just your keyboard. If there are certain areas that you cannot access, then consider ways to improve your web design and make it more keyboard-friendly.
Include alt text for images
When adding images to website building platforms like WordPress, you have the option to insert alternative (alt) text for the image. This is designed to describe the image if it fails to load for whatever reason. Alt text can also be viewed by assistive technology like screen readers and provide the user with a description of the image if they are unable to view it.
For this reason, you should always include alt text when adding any images to your webpages.
The same applies if you are using media like videos and podcasts. When using this type of media, be sure to provide text alternatives for any users with visual or auditory impairments.
Be careful when using color
According to statistics, there are around 300 million people who are colorblind in the world. Of these people, almost 99% of have red-green color blindness. If you use a color scheme that uses large amounts of red and green shades, then these people may be unable to access your website or understand your content.
On the other hand, other people with disabilities can benefit from using bright colors to help organize content and distinguish key elements of your web pages. To help make your site accessible to both groups, use colors carefully and make sure to use other visual indicators like symbols. Always choose a contrasting color palette that makes your content easy to read and navigate.
Use dynamic content sparingly
Many businesses use dynamic content to make their websites more interactive and functional. Put simply, dynamic content is any web content that changes without a page refresh. This may include features like popups, overlays, and page updates.
Dynamic content can offer several great benefits, but it can make accessing your website extremely difficult for people using assistive devices. Fortunately, you can easily make dynamic content more accessible by providing users with notifications of any dynamic changes to content.
You can get expert advice on how to test the accessibility of your website and content by visiting www.digivante.com. Accessibility testing will help ensure that your website can be used by everyone, regardless of any disabilities or limitations.
Only use tables to display data
Tables are a useful tool in web design as they allow data and information to be presented in a way that is easy to read. However, some websites also use tables for page layout and this can cause serious issues for users with devices like screen readers.
To avoid any unnecessary confusion and complications, stick to only using tables to display data. When you do use a table, keep it as simple as possible and use headers for rows and columns. This will make your content far easier to navigate and understand. You can help make tables even more accessible by including table captions, creating row and column headers, and using proportional sizing.
Consider typography in your web design
Typography is another key feature to consider when designing an accessible website. Typography can be described as the technique of arranging written content in a way that makes it legible and readable. This can help make content more accessible to people with disabilities, particularly those with visual impairments. To make your content easily readable, experts advise choosing a limited number of basic fonts, using real text, and limiting the number of font variations such as italics and bold.
