How to Improve Your Website Accessibility (and Why!)
The internet has become the most important source for people of all shapes, sizes and abilities to find the information they need. If you belong to the category of professionals who impart essential information to those who need it, there are some things worth knowing.
The most important thing worth knowing here is the fact that you have to make the information accessible. As the size of the internet has grown beyond our imagination over the past few years, you need to work on making your website visible to people who may have needs for their sight or physical abilities.
That is why we are here with an article to let you know about some of the crucial tips if you want to improve your website accessibility. So, let us get started without much delay.
Why does it matter so much?
You will never be able to harness the full potential of the online media if your website is not accessible in the first place. Better website accessibility comes with a lot of benefits. First, it is able to serve your economic needs.
According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, around 6.8 million Australians (40 per cent) aged 18 years and over report having a disability or long-term health condition.
This benefit might be more relevant to businesses or people with similar needs. With better accessibility of your website, you will be able to reach more target customers easily.
Apart from that, web accessibility is a right in a large number of countries. So, living in those countries makes it compulsory for website owners to make their websites accessible to people. There are certain standards about web accessibility that all website owners need to comply with.
Failing to comply with those standards might lead the website owners to several troubles. Learning to improve your website accessibility is going to help you a lot in all cases.
Some tips to help you improve your website accessibility
Now you are well aware of the essentials associated with it. Here are a few tips that would help you a lot to improve your website accessibility. Let us see which of these tips are going to help you in getting what you want.
Choose the right CMS that enhances accessibility
If you think that WordPress and Drupal are the only content management systems available right now, you might be wrong. There are several options that you should choose from but make sure the template supports the accessibility of your website. When you choose a CMS, several other things depend on it.
That is why making the wrong choice is going to harm your interests in the long run. Consider going through the documentation of the theme to know more about creating favourable content and accessible layouts. After you choose the theme, make sure you select other elements like plugins, modules, etc. accordingly.
Make the right use of alt text
Alt text is something you have to pay proper attention to when it comes to using in relation to the images. The thing is, visitors should know about the message you want to convey through that image.
When the image on your webpage has pieces of text in it, including those texts in the alt text is a good idea. But there are some images that need the most attention. In cases like that, the use of alt texts will simply distract the visitors from focusing on the image.
Pay more attention to the structure of your content
When you are delivering content in written form, it is very important to compose the whole piece of content in the right order. Opting for a strategic order will enhance convenience for the screen readers after visiting your website.
CSS will help you a lot in doing these things exactly the way you want. Several heading levels like H1, H2, H3, etc. The use of H1 is right for the title and if the title needs more explanation, you can use other headings i.e. H3, H3, etc.
Use additional symbols other than just colours
Colours are very important in many ways when it comes to marking something as important or other to describe its property/priority. You must have seen the compulsory fields of a form with a red-coloured asterisk.
But you have to ensure that the colour blind people are able to perceive things easily. You might find the internet quite an easy place to explore things you want to know. But things can be difficult for persons with some disabilities. In order to improve your website accessibility, the website must have enough resources to communicate easily with every visitor.
You may opt for several symbols for people who are unable to see colours as normal people. There are several ways in which you can help people with other disabilities as well. Taking care of it is not only humanitarian but it is a law in several countries. Access to the internet is a right by law in many countries. So, considering the needs of those people is very necessary.
Make a website that visitors can access using the keyboard alone
There might be some people who are unable to or find it difficult to use a mouse or trackpad. In that case, your website has to facilitate the ability to explore the website using the keyboard only.
There are some things you can do here in order to do it effectively. Such people will find it easy to explore through different tabs if you arrange tabs in the right order. The pages with long pieces of content must have anchor links to let the users jump wherever they want without having to scroll through them.
Including a link saying skip to the main content on the top of each content page. This would help people jump to the main content very easily. Avoid using such elements that users can activate only by hovering over using the mouse.
Be very careful while designing the menu on the page. Consider the needs of people who would access your website with keyboards while designing the menu of your website.
Final words
There are several ways to improve your website accessibility. We hope this article helped you know about those ways a bit. Keep an eye on the varying needs of people. It will help you a lot in coming up with new techniques and let them use the internet the way they prefer.
