Web Accessibility: How to Ensure Your Site is Usable for Everyone
Web accessibility or eAccessibility is an essential practice for making sure your website is available to everyone. Inclusive to our diverse needs, accessible websites allow you to share your information without barriers. Not only is ADA compliance a legal requirement, but it’s also a great practice for any size of business.
From Alt text images to keyboard navigation support, accessible websites have several functions and tools for an inclusive, user-friendly experience.
Web Accessibility: Making Sure Your Website is Accessible to Everyone
WCAG and ADA Compliance:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG are a set of essential policies and procedures for making sure your media is available to those with diverse needs or disabilities. Along with ADA compliance standards, there are already rules in place to promote web accessibility for all.
Make sure to visit a trusted site to get the full checklist of ways your business or brand can value the user experience.
Some Key Elements of Web Accessibility
Many of us have diverse needs, abilities, and disabilities. For some web users, it means needing larger fonts and color contrast, for others keyboard navigation and alternative text. Regardless, paying attention to the different ways you can make your website more web accessible is important for inclusivity in your business.
- Text Alternatives: Describe your visual content to make it accessible for people with vision impairments.
- Captioning & Transcripts: Create captioning and transcripts for video and audio content.
- Color Contrast: Web accessibility requires color contrast between your text and background.
- Responsive Design: Your website should be accessible from multiple devices.
- Keyboard Navigation: Make sure your page can function with keyboard navigation and not just a mouse.
- Time Adjustments: When using interactive content, allow your users to extend time limits.
- Navigable Content: Your navigation tabs should be clear, logical, and user-friendly. This means large headings, landmarks, menus, and content.
- Avoid Flashes: This can be a trigger for those who have seizures.
- Clear Language: Using clear, concise language when writing content can boost your web accessibility.
- Assistive Technology Compatibility: Make sure your website will function on assistive technologies such as screen readers, magnifiers, and more.
- Form Accessibility: Provide clear labels, guidance, and appropriate focus management for all form elements.
- Auto-complete: This can help reduce user input on online forms.
- Error Handling: Make form errors are clear and easy to remedy.
- Adjustable Playback: For better web accessibility, allow users to adjust, control, and manage playback speed, volume, and more.
Stay Up to Date
Web accessibility is an ever-evolving practice in creating an inclusive online experience. We are always learning new ways to provide user-friendly websites and accessible information. That’s why it’s important to stay informed and up to date on the new functions, compatibilities, and technologies.
Big Rig Xpress is a great place to start. With our knowledge of and ability to create ADA-compliant websites, we can help make sure web accessibility is a priority for your business.
Web Accessibility for Inclusive Business
Your business is open to everyone, and your website should be too. From text to technology, there are so many ways you can create web accessibility and inclusivity for your brand, product, or message. By having a clear layout and alternative content methods, you open up your website to a world of diverse clients and happy customers.
Big Rig Xpress can get you started, let’s promote inclusivity one website at a time.