If you are in the process of building a website for your business, there are several different things to consider. However, one of the most important factors is to ensure that you are building an accessible website that can easily be used by people with diverse abilities. Not only will this ensure that you are able to build the best relationships with all your customers, but it is also becoming more and more essential to meeting a range of international standards and regulations. Expert company accessiBe has all the information you need to know on creating a checklist for an accessible website.
What Makes a Website Accessible?
An accessible website is a site that is easy to use for any user, regardless of the device that they are using or their individual needs. An accessible website takes into account that not everybody who uses their website might have the same abilities, and that some users may need adjustments to be made to ensure that they can access and use the site, for example, making the website screen reader friendly. Building an accessible website means considering users that might have difficulties using the site without the adequate enhancements and adjustments.
Operable User Interface
When thinking about how users will interact with your website interface, it’s important to consider as many different users’ needs as possible. For example, keyboard navigation support makes sure that your website and content will be easy to access by users who make use of devices that emulate keyboards. Site maps, site search, and skip navigation links are some of the main features that you can provide here. Ensure that your content structure is easy to perceive by making good use of semantic elements and spacing.
Easy-to-Understand Content
There are several strategies that you can take when filling your website with content to ensure that it is accessible and understandable for all users. Font sizes and color schemes are some of the main things to consider when it comes to both the written and visual content on your website. Font sizes should be chosen with visually impaired users in mind, and you can make use of tools that allow users themselves to manually enlarge the font size when using your website without impacting the rest of the usability. In addition, consider color blind users when putting together your website design. A color blind-friendly color scheme will ensure that all users have the best experience.
Screen Reader Friendly
One of the biggest adjustments that you can make to ensure that your website is more accessible is to make it easy to access by users that rely on screen readers. Screen readers are devices that are often used by the visually impaired. You will need to ensure that there are alternatives to certain elements of content on your website that can be picked up by the screen reader. For example, adding descriptive tags to all images on your website will make sure that even if a user can’t see the image for themselves, they are able to hear what is in it.
Today, it’s important to think about all your users when building a website, including those who may have additional accessibility needs.