A website is the face of your business. Users reach your services and products through the website, and you can also reach the customers with the website. So, your website gets judged on a different basis. Before judging a website for the products and services, a thing that impacts the users is its choice of design, color, and purpose it is delivering correctly or not. Above all, the most important one is the website’s accessibility. Website accessibility supports reaching you with the target audience.
Understanding Website Accessibility
Website accessibility is the process of creating and maintaining a website so that users can easily access and understands the purpose a website wants to serve. Make sure the information you want to serve is easy to access and understood by anyone using videos, screen readers, or just looking at your website. In simple words, website content is accessible if it is observable, easy to understand, vigorous, and operable.
What Makes Website Accessibility Necessary?
It is essential for every business that their website is easily accessible so that everyone can access and understand the information you want to serve. In case, the website is not easily accessible then you will miss the potential customers. Not being able to reach the audience and in some cases, misleading or wrong information can lead you to legal action. Any government or private business is advised to follow the lawsuits for the inaccessible online content.
Make sure your website is accessible and update the correct information and design regularly. Keep your website simple but impactful. Many basic websites are not accessible because of accessibility errors on the home page. Make the content as conclusive as possible and focus on quality content creation. Do that with the plan. Let’s discuss the best practices to follow that go in your favor.
Website Accessibility Standards to Follow
Website accessibility is an important task, and you need to pay attention to all elements of website design like site architecture, media content, font, and many more. Here are the basic website accessibility standards, which every website, business owner, or strategist has to follow.
Pick The Apt CMS
CMS or Content management system is a fundamental practice that guides the users and supports you to process the website development and maintenance. Any small company without a web team can make the best with the same. WordPress comes with features to make your website accessible. Drupal is another option that supports you for website development. Make sure you check and then recheck everything. Working with a website development company follows the updated guidelines.
Use Alt Text For Images
Alt-text is an essential part of the On-page SEO checklist and makes your website more accessible. This text is usually prompted to add images in the CMS and contained in an HTML element. It makes the readers use to change the change for some who are unable to see the graphic on the website.
Convey Information Simple, Without Special Effects
To make your website content user’s accessible, you can use the various abilities with assistive technologies as an option, but avoid doing that, especially where you put the information on the website. Not every user can understand the colors and imagery, and for ease for everyone keeping it simple is key.
Keep Headings Sorted
For an informative blog post, headings play a vital role. It will convey the purpose and importance of the section to the entire post. Make sure you follow a process and keep the headings sorted to make that understandable for the users. These signals will convey the logical structure of the post, and to serve the purpose, you might choose the headings of the brand’s style accordingly.
Headings need not be confused with just the size and shape of the text, but they are HTML elements. It indicates that they can convey the structure of the post and makes the sections important for those who are using a screen-reader. Thus, it is vital to keep them in order. Never skip to a heading of a similar type for comparable sections of the content.
Adding Captions and Transcripts to the Videos
When you include videos on your website, it is necessary to provide captions and transcripts along with that. It will help the users to hear or enjoy the content even if they are deaf or have hearing issues. With closed captions and text, transcripts make the users get to know more about the information you wanted to convey. Also, it will not let you trust only the audio or visual image they are looking through.
Make Use Of Descriptive URLs
Screen readers usually rely on readable and descriptive URLs. They provide content for users who are blind or visually impaired. Adding meaningful descriptions can help to make you skip the right content. For example, if you have a link for the website with.
Low Readability- www.xyzhousingsociety.com/about
High Readability- www.xyzhousingsociety.com/about-our-company
Reduce The Use Of Tables
Screen readers make it able for blind users with the count of rows and columns. Still, this is difficult for the screen readers to collect the tabular data in the same flow as it appears visually. So, if you must prepare a table, then ensure to use apt headers for every row and column. You can also use HTML5 table captions whenever required to add context for any disabled users.
Easy To Read Fonts
Fonts give the visual appeal to the web page but make that easy to read. It makes your website more accessible, but there is more to it. It is necessary for marketing psychology. According to the cognitive fluency effect, if readers find something harder, then it affects their trustworthiness. It makes it harder to read, and then perceiving the same becomes a question.
Navigation Should Be Keyboard-Friendly
Website navigation should be easily accessible for everyone. It will keep the visitors engaged with the content; check the product pages and signup for newsletters. For an inclusive website, keep navigation keyboard friendly. Keyboard users use the tab key to move throughout the website. To make this key run throughout the website properly, be ready with the test and code set up. For your website, keep website accessibility at the top priority.
Use Contrasting Colors
One thing, which majorly impacts the accessibility of a website is the color contrast. A study says that 86% of the websites with low contrast text falls. Use the text color and the background contrasted well so that visitors can read the information easily.
Easy to Understand Information in Different Formats
The basic yet most important foundation for website accessibility is using easy-to-understand information in different formats. Use the knowledgeable content on the website that is easily understandable.
Conclusion
Making a website is necessary for every business, but what if that will not reach the right users. Many aspects make the website successful, and the most important of them is website accessibility. The above mentioned are the points that are necessary to make a website easily accessible and hence successful. Hiring an expert can be made the task professionally done for you. AR Digital Solutions is a leading website design company, that works with a team of experts to make your website changes to the brand. For personalized solutions or other information, you can contact our web designers today!
