Making websites design more user-friendly and thus more accessible is one of the major issues faced by developers while creating a website for users and this is regardless of the device on which the said particular website is loaded/ displayed.
But this also raises the question of why do developers not keep this in mind when they create websites from scratch? Why are only some websites accessible to all and some are not? Well, there are several reasons. So In this blog today, we shall cover the aspect of how to increase the marketability by making your website design more accessible.
CONCEPT OF ACCESSIBLE WEB DESIGN
The internet has a huge amount of users who keep surfing on it at any single point of time. Many of these users might have some sort of disability, but yet they surf or use the internet for their purposes anyway. The concept of accessible web design initiates from here only. The sites need to be accessible to all the types of users that is it has to exist in multiple different kinds of formats so that its accessible to all the users without any hassle.
Creating accessible websites is paramount, especially for organizations and companies who invest in making high quality, content rich, and user-friendly websites for themselves.
HOW DO I START WITH MAKING WEBSITES ACCESSIBLE
Making website accessible begins with first classifying the types of disability for which you would need to make your website accessible. To begin with, there are three kinds of disabilities that you need to keep a watch on.
1).Temporary
Any kind of disability which will affect you for a short duration is called a temporary disablement.
2). Conditional
This is less of a disability and more of a situation where you might find yourself without any resource to surf/ use the internet. An example of this would be a laptop without any battery, or a no internet connection problem.
3). Permanent
This is the disability where a person suffers from it for his life. An example of this would be being physically handicapped or being blind, deaf, etc.
WHY IS WEB ACCESSIBILITY IMPORTANT
When you create, for example, an e-commerce website, you expect people to flock to your e-commerce website so that you can conduct your business online as well. But here is when the catch comes in. You cannot expect that all your users shall be healthy and whole. There are bound to be users from all walks of life. Some may be old; some may be young; some of them may be suffering from disabilities, etc. Hence your website would need to cater to every single one of them, or you lose your online customers. Thus for this very reason, it is highly important that you create a website that is easily accessible to anyone and everyone irrespective of the fact that they are disabled or not.
Furthermore and likewise an accessible website is one of the least demanding and the simplest approach to work with the variety of people with or without disabilities, for example, disabled people who can’t peruse print media or people who experience movement problems while going to an actual store or shopping center, etc. Besides, when you create a website that is user-friendly and accessible to everyone, you also end overlapping it with others, for example, a web design that is adaptable to mobile phones, SEO or its usability.
An accessible website opens the gateway to data and communication for individuals with disabilities. That is, the web accessibility hindrances to print, sound, and visual media can be considerably more effectively dealt with through latest web development and innovations and cutting edge technologies.
WAYS TO MAKE WEBSITE ACCESSIBLE
Now let’s see certain aspects which can help you make your website easily accessible to any user online.
a). SITE IS KEYBOARD FRIENDLY
This particular method is quite important. In the sense that for a website to be accessible, it should not be such that a mouse input is also required in conjunction with a keyboard. A user should be able to use and navigate through a website solely through a keyboard in itself. This is more important because many assistive innovations and developments are dependent solely on the keyboard for navigating through the websites. The easiest way for navigating through the websites with the help of a keyboard is by way of using a TAB key. Using a TAB key will let you jump to the specific areas of the websites where options are displayed. Hence at this point, you need to ensure that all your options listed on the website can be easily accessed by using the TAB key.
b). ENSURE THAT ALL THE CONTENT IS EASILY AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET
Notwithstanding making your site compatible with the keyboard input, you additionally need to guarantee that all content and materials on the page are available. While this is normally not an issue, it very well may be an issue when a page contains information presented dynamically.
So, content is dynamic on the off chance that it can change without the page it’s displayed at upon reloading. This can turn into an issue if the site doesn’t inform you of assistive tools and programs regarding the change. For instance, many users will possibly ‘read’ the site as it shows up when it first loads. You have to make the user aware when something shifts or the users miss the new information.
One way you can do this is by utilizing ARIA spots/landmarks. These are labels or tags that you can add to information to give it a clear, distinct, and separate category on the page.
ARIA is likewise helpful for making the website navigation increasingly clear and straightforward as it gives clients a chance to jump straightforwardly to very particular information. Thus, they won’t need to tab through each menu option just to get to the relevant part of the menu and can straightaway bypass over other menus which have a lot of submenus and can prove to be quite heavy. A similar impact can be accomplished by utilizing connections, which are imperceptible connections that give clients a chance to skip menus. In any case, ARIA will, in general, be increasingly adaptable and effective.
c). INCLUSION OF ALT TEXT TO THE IMAGES PRESENT
Here, you can enter the alternative text or the elective content for a picture. This content goes about as a substitution for the picture on the off chance that it neglects to stack on the website. Nevertheless, the alt text is likewise made use of by screen readers to ‘read’ the image. You can along these lines utilize this field to portray a picture, offering a way or an option to users who might somehow or another miss it due to any reason whatsoever.
As though that weren’t sufficient, alt content can likewise enable you to improve your site’s SEO. Simply make a point to compose elucidating and illustrative rundowns of each picture, and endeavor to incorporate your textual description at whatever point it bodes well with the picture.
d). COLOR COMBINATION FOR WEBSITE
People suffering from color blindness face serious hardship when it comes to navigating through a website. It’s because color blindness presents real trouble at the time of reading the text which does not stand out in contrast. The ideal way is that the background is kept white while the text appears in black. This is the most contrasting color combination that is available. The advantage of this is that not only do color blind people find it effective and easy to read, but it also looks very neat and proper on a website.
e). FORMS
Forms are quite useful on most sites. However, the major issue over here is that forms need to be designed extremely carefully. It is also important to ensure the boxes next to the fields are corresponding other what happens is that a mismatch is created and while a person with clear sight can differentiate easily, it won’t be the same for people with imperfect vision or for that matter even a person viewing with a screen reader.
f). TABLES TO BE USED ONLY FOR TABULAR DATA
Tables are an excellent way to display data cleanly, and the main advantage is that a lot of data can be reflected in a table without creating confusion. However, over here, the problem arises that tables cannot be read properly on a screen reader. In such a situation, people using a screen reader will not be able to make head or tail of the table, and this will just lead to chaos and confusion in understanding the data present in the table.
CONCLUSION
Making your website accessible is a great thing, especially because of the benefits that you would enjoy in regards to the same. You will see increased traffic on your website, more conversions from prospective customers to actual customers, more profits, etc. and all this can be attributed to one reason that is Website Accessibility. When you develop a website, you have to make sure that your website is accessible to everyone irrespective of their disability. This makes every single visitor to your website feel welcome, and this will subsequently result in much more traffic, as discussed above.
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