Website Accessibility and Why It’s a Must for Your Company
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Just as ramps and elevators in buildings have become standard brick-and-mortar design features, ensuring easy access for all individuals, society has become increasingly focused on the need for accessibility in the virtual domain—with websites designed to be accessible for users with vision, hearing and motor impairment. To that effect, the United States has enacted laws requiring federal websites to be designed with accessible content and navigation features, with California following suit in adopting its own website accessibility laws. And even though there’s debate over the extent to which accessibility laws apply to the business sector, companies like McDonald’s and Dominoes have been sued for allegedly not making their websites accessible enough.
But what does it all mean for your organization?
Three takeaways:
Making your website accessible is simply the right thing to do for your customers and clients.
An accessible website means you’re reaching a larger audience, and that’s essential in an age where web traffic rivals—and often exceeds—foot and phone traffic.
An accessible website protects your business from potentially costly litigation, and saves you from scrambling to be compliant in the event that universal website accessibility laws are ever enacted.
Our website accessibility services
As part of our website development process, we’ll either evaluate your existing website for accessibility gaps, or ensure that your new website is designed to be accessible at launch.
WHAT WE EVALUATE:
Accessibility for the visually impaired
Alt text
Alt text describes HTML markup tags that contain descriptions of every visual element on your website, from your company logo to hero images, icons, and even buttons. Configured properly, alt text allows screen reading software to audibly describe to a visually impaired user what graphic elements are displayed and whether they can be interacted with on a website.Other page markup
In addition to defining alt text for graphic elements on your website, good HTML markup tags will also help screen readers provide a user with important navigation information, like what page a user is on and the difference between headlines and body text. In other words, they’ll ensure that not only will a visually impaired user be able to read your website, but that they’ll also know how to read your website—which is really just as important.Color contrast
Color contrast requirements ensure that colorblind users and users with low-vision impairments are still able to read text on your website without difficulty. This applies to all normal text (i.e. any content meant to be read by all users). Exceptions are made for purely decorative or incidental content like text on a logo or text on a hidden element.
Accessibility for the hearing impaired
Closed Captioning
Closed captions ensure that hearing-impaired users can understand videos on your website, by providing an on-screen transcript of dialogue and any other relevant sounds. Making sure that your website videos utilize some sort of captioning service (whether auto-generated through popular video hosting sites like YouTube or Facebook, or through specialized transcription services) is not only an important accessibility consideration, but also a feature that many who simply prefer not to listen to video audio find convenient.
Accessibility for the motor impaired
Keyboard and mouse alternatives
Not everyone can operate a mouse or a keyboard, or their ability to do so effectively is limited by a visual impairment. That’s why it’s important to ensure that a user can easily tab through all elements of your website, whether through assistive technology like scanning software or simply by using the Tab key. This dovetails with the above-mentioned need to properly use markup tags so that screen readers can identify what elements a user is tabbing through.
Build your perfect website
In addition to website accessibility, Kelley & Associates is fully equipped to ensure your website is optimized for growth and success on all fronts—from website architecture to graphic design, SEO, social strategy and so much more.
