People create websites for varied reasons. But one reason remains unanimous: to connect with the world!
Yes, a website is a perfect way to reach millions of people and communicate with them. But, the fact is, that website development can be a complex task with so many aspects to focus on. Like, responsive designing, aesthetically pleasing graphics, engaging content and so on. Amid all the planning and execution, one feature that often goes overlooked is accessibility!
A good website design takes visual as well as accessibility issues in account. Millions of Internet users around the world have special needs, disabilities or impairments making it difficult to use certain websites. But while keeping this concern in mind while designing the site, you can ensure to make it welcoming to as many users as possible. Adhering to basic accessibility guidelines, you can improve website traffic, earn more revenue and add a dash of responsiveness and inclusiveness that can appeal to everyone.
What is Website Accessibility?
A website designed in a manner where there are no barriers for people with disabilities to visit it, makes it high in accessibility. This includes people who might be having problems with hearing, sight, reading and understanding or even using the mouse.
How to make my website more accessible?
A few suggestions below might go a long way to help you make some desirable changes to the accessibility of your website.
- Make your site keyboard friendly: One of the most important steps to make your website more accessible is to make it work even without the use of a mouse! This is so because most of the assistive technologies that your visitors might be using rely on ?keyboard only? navigation.
- Add substitutes to audio and visual elements: If you have important information contained in an infographic, a table or a video, include a transcript or caption so it can be easily accessed by assistive technologies being used by visitors.
- Adding alt text to images: Alt text is a small text that describes what?s in an image, video, graphic or any kind of media and is inserted as an attribute to the HTML of a website page. Relevant and descriptive bold text on a website improves accessibility along with better SEO and user experience.
- Add bright colors and contrasts: Choosing colors that are contrasting makes it easy to read the text and also distinguish between the various elements on the page.
- Make room for larger buttons: Leaving space around buttons makes it easy to push without disturbing the surrounding content.
Wrapping up: By just keeping an empathetic approach and a bit of awareness while designing your website can make a big difference in its accessibility.