Tips For Improving Website Accessibility

Tips For Improving Website Accessibility

When designing any website accessibility is an important consideration. You want to ensure everyone who visits can read your website and that the content contained in it can be understood by everyone who views it. Designing a website that meets all the defined criteria for accessibility can present a challenge even to a veteran website developer. Tools such as accessibe help in this process and can help reduce the need for changes as the site is built to be accessible as it is designed. Accessibe reviews show that people find such tools useful when designing a website. Here is a broad overview of some ways to make your website more accessible to visitors.

Seven Tips For Making Your Website Accessible

  • Proper Use Of Headings: using headings correctly organized your content and makes it easier to read. In addition, headers also improve your website’s compatibility with screen reader software. By using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) you ensure headers are inserted correctly in your website content. Other tips include only using h1 headers for your primary title and not skipping heading levels as this can confuse screen reader software platforms.
  • Include Alt Text For Images: when using images for your website you should always include alt text for images that are not considered decorative. This includes images meant to convey an idea, a feeling, or a theme. Some images also communicate data, such as a picture of a graph. Alt text should explain what message the image is trying to communicate and if your picture contains facts or figures, the alt text should provide this information. Alt text is a crucial method of communicating image meaning to screen reading software.
  • Proper Use of Color: color contrast and use of colors are important choices when designing a website and can affect accessibility. Proper analysis of your site’s color contrast ensures that it is readable. Also, the use of formatting such as using whitespace, borders, and quotations can ensure your color choices do not negatively impact your website’s overall accessibility.
  • Links Should Have Descriptive Names: when you include links in a text the link text should indicate where a link goes and the general information. A link labeled ‘click here’ doesn’t communicate descriptive information to the reader. However, even simple links such as ‘contact us here’ or ‘about us’ tell visitors to your website what these links are for.
  • Forms and Accessibility: forms on your website indicate areas where the user enters text. All form fields should have proper descriptions and labeling, so there is no confusion about the type of information that should be entered. Forms should also be properly configured for keyboard navigation with hitting the tab key allowing a user to go through a series of fields in the correct display order before coming to any submit option.
  • Accessible Content: the video and audio content on your website needs to be properly accessible by users. This means that audio and video content should not start playing automatically, the player controls need to be accessible via keyboard entry, and transcripts and closed captioning need to be available.
  • Allow For Keyboard Navigation: not every computer user makes use of a trackpad or a mouse when interacting with websites and their content. To be accessible, your website should be keyboard accessible. This can be accomplished through jump lists, skip to main content links, and menus that can be activated via keyboard entry.

Final Thoughts

Accessibility is a key factor in website design as you want the content you are putting out onto the internet to be accessible by everyone who visits your website. By keeping the user experience and accessibility at the forefront of your mind as you design your website, you create a better visitor experience and a better website.