Three Ways to Make Your Website More Accessible

One of the most overlooked aspects of website design we tend to forget is website accessibility. There is a misconception that web accessibility requires sacrifice for aesthetics or that the effort is not worth it. However, with the increasing number of ways that users access the Internet, creating designs with the help of labels and badges like EU energy labels that are easy to find and use can be seen in all ways that are very important to the success of a network website and even a company.

The excellent news about website accessibility is that it’s not as difficult as you think. Web development techniques complement most web accessibility strategies.

What is Web Accessibility?

According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the web is the design and development of websites, tools, and technologies that people with disabilities can use.

People with disabilities must be able to identify, understand, navigate, interact with and contribute to the Internet. Accessibility refers to all problems affecting accessibility, including physical, mental, neurological, physical, speech, and vision.

Benefits of Creating an Accessible Website

Aside from discipline, building an accessible (user-friendly) website can strengthen your social brand and build brand trust for the foreseeable future. If we look at it from a business perspective, companies with websites that cannot be used will not be able to increase their marketing potential.

According to the US Census Bureau, about 54 million people with disabilities are in the United States. This adds to about $1 trillion in total revenue, which means over $220 billion in discretionary energy spending—lots of cheddar.

Companies rarely intentionally make their site inaccessible to people with disabilities. Many people want to create a free website but want to do some research when it comes to learning about the costs and benefits—required for this type of work.

3 Ways to Make Your Website Accessible

Understandably, many brands don’t know where to start when designing a website, but it’s easier than you think. Below we have put together three easy ways to make your site accessible to everyone.

Way #1. Choose a CMS that supports accessibility

There are many content management systems to help you build your website. Common examples include Drupal, WordPress and Magento, but many other options are available.

Once you have chosen the CMS that suits your needs, select an available theme/model. Refer to the core database for usage information and suggestions for creating accessible and organized content on the topic. Follow the same guidelines when choosing modules, plugins, or widgets.

For things like editing tools and video games, make sure they support accessible content creation. For example, toolbars should include options for titles and open tables, and video players should include closed captions. It should also be available for CMS management (such as creating a blog post or posting a comment).

Way #2. Include People with Disabilities in the Design Process

This might seem an obvious idea, but if you want to create a unique site, you need to reach out to the community and learn about their challenges when launching your site. Once you know what your users are up against, you can build a website without any hassle from users.

When you are in the process of developing your website, you should try to include people with special needs in your marketing team or process. They will be able to communicate their needs to you, help you develop appropriate strategies, and eliminate any potential pitfalls.

First, you want to create an accessible interface for your website, but an easy-to-use interface is useless if you use the wrong colors. Contrasting colors, for example, will make it difficult to recognize a sign.

Choosing the right color can be difficult. Almost 8% of all men have color vision deficiency (CVD), a condition known as “red-green blindness.” Therefore, if possible, avoid using these colors.

On the other hand, using different colors to organize content can be very helpful for people with learning difficulties. It’s all about balance when choosing colors, so make sure you choose colors that aren’t neutral. For example, it may be difficult for users to recognize a combination of bright blue, yellow, and green. You should also use white space to help users sort blocks of content.

Way #3. Make Video and Multimedia Accessible

Videos and other elements on your website play an important role in increasing traffic to your website. While blind and visually impaired people cannot see, deaf and hard of hearing people cannot listen to sounds.

You can use audio description to describe visual features such as images, gestures, position changes, etc. This will help blind people enjoy the video. However, use common sense when adding an audio description.

Ensure you don’t have hours of audio information that annoys the user. You can provide subtitles to accompany videos and audio tracks for deaf or hard-of-hearing users.

Be sure to use the proper color contrast to highlight information correctly. Finally, it would be best if you used an available multimedia tool. Fortunately, HTML5 players are more likely to take advantage of opening opportunities.

Final Thought

The last piece of advice I’d like to share is more philosophical about designing for the Internet. Many of us think that achieving a high level of accessibility on the web comes at the cost of a general/average user. No.

It provides a wide range of possibilities and different levels of complexity. I learned this lesson by looking at all the play equipment. I noticed that this is not about reducing the difficulty of obstacles in the playground (as shown below) but about giving more options at different difficulty levels.

The Internet should be accessible to everyone and have an easy user experience. It is also important to note that using your website more will benefit everyone: descriptive links are more powerful, titles are better, and alt tags are better for searches. While the idea of ​​testing your website and adjusting its functionality to meet the needs of your users can be intimidating, it’s easier than you might think.