Society in general has gotten used to the ever-present nature of the internet, but for some individuals, accessing and consuming web-based content is not as easy as it may seem. Web accessibility addresses various disparities by ensuring users, including those with disabilities and other challenges, can access, experience, and contribute to every aspect of your digital assets. As a result, integrating accessibility standards into your company’s website is more than just a good idea — it’s good for business.
What Makes a Website Accessible and User-Friendly?
True website accessibility takes all types of disabilities and contexts into account, including visual and auditory impairments as well as physical and cognitive disabilities alongside situational contexts, such as low bandwidth, mobile users, and older populations. As a result, you should integrate several key elements into your site’s design to ensure that it offers a user-friendly experience and is accessible to everyone.
Easy Navigation for All Users
Creating a user-friendly and accessible website starts at the most basic level of design — navigation. When first building your site, it is important to use a clear and intuitive layout with a consistent menu structure, easily identifiable links, and logical categorization of content. This ensures that users can find what they need with ease and use assistive technology, such as screen readers, to move through it.
Visual Clarity with Optimized Color Contrast
Another important step to take in your website design is optimizing color contrast between the text and background of your site. Doing this ensures that viewers can clearly see and read all elements in all conditions, such as bright sunlight. Proper color contrast also helps users with a variety of visual issues, such as color blindness and low vision, including age-related visual issues, by helping them to clearly see and interpret all visual elements on your site. At a minimum, you want to achieve a 4.5:1 ratio between text and background for optimal viewing.
Clear and Descriptive Media Elements
From images to video, you want to make sure that users can access all the media elements on your site, regardless of their context. For videos, this means adding closed captioning and/or a transcript for users viewing in loud environments, those with hearing impairments, and those with slow internet speeds. It is also important to ensure that images are coded with alternative text, also known as alt text or descriptive text.
Alt text provides users with a text-based description of each image and is embedded into the metadata of your site. As a result, users with visual impairments, those using screen readers, and those with slow internet speeds can still experience and benefit from the use of these images. As an additional benefit, the words used in alt text, closed captions, and transcripts can focus on keywords and search terms that could positively impact your website’s SEO and search rankings.
Flexibility with Multiple Input Methods
Integrating accessible features such as keyboard navigation, which allows users to move across your page without a mouse, will help make your site more accessible to users with visual as well as other physical impairments and barriers, such as limited movement or a broken mouse, that may affect their ability to click on items. In addition, adding keyboard shortcuts and enhancements like a keyboard focus indicator into the code of your site can provide users with flexible and accessible navigation options.
Why Accessibility Is a Win-Win for Your Website
When you design your website from the ground up with accessibility and user-friendly details in mind, you do a lot more than just meet standards. This type of universal design incorporates innovative tools for creating a cutting-edge website, putting your company ahead of the competition.
In addition, elements such as high-contrast text and clear navigation not only ensure that users with disabilities feel welcome and engaged in your site, but also positively enhance everyone’s experience by creating easy-to-read and navigate websites that customers enjoy using. This type of people-first design also has a positive impact on SEO and allows you additional opportunities to integrate keywords and other features that directly affect your search engine rankings.
Simplifying Accessibility Standards for Your Website
Depending on your industry, accessibility may not be an option. For example, Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), requires all electronic resources produced or funded by United States federal dollars to meet stringent accessibility guidelines. Integrating these features is also an opportunity to take advantage of cutting-edge technology and expand the reach of your site to reach all users while also meeting accessibility standards.
To help businesses meet those standards, the Web Accessibility Initiative’s World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed a set of international standards and guidelines for accessible web design, including HTML and CSS, known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). WCAG focuses on four main principles, making sites perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Its goal is to ensure that web content is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. In addition to following the best practices outlined here, you can use tools like WAVE, Axe, and Lighthouse to help evaluate compliance elements once they are added.
Start Your Accessibility Journey with Expert Support
Ensuring that your website is accessible for everyone is a critical element of modern web design and one that is best addressed from the foundation, rather than added on to existing sites. It’s important to be proactive when developing your site and engage professional web designers who are fluent in web accessibility and WCAG criteria. As a result, you ensure that your business’ page is available for everyone.
Ready to learn more about integrating accessible design into your website? Elevation Ten Thousand can help. Contact us today to learn more.
