It’s the internet’s mission is to give equal access to information and participation to everyone. While the Web did it largely succeed as a democratizing tool, it still hasn’t fully bridged the gap. One of the areas where we need a lot more improvement is web accessibility.
Web accessibility means giving equal access to the Internet to all people, regardless of their hardware, software, location, or ability. You can be part of it by making sure your own website means the requirement of the accessible Web.
Doing so will benefit everyone. Readers who were previously unable to access your content will be able to enjoy it. And you, on the other hand, will boost your site traffic and reach new audiences you might not have known about before.
It takes more for a high-quality website than just great UX design and engaging content. Your audience will appreciate that you went the extra mile to make your site accessible. Here are some of the initial steps you can take towards a more accessible website.
Make your site keyboard-friendly
Most assistive technologies rely on keyboard-only navigation, which means that users navigate the Web without a mouse. That’s why making your site keyboard-friendly is one of the first steps towards greater accessibility. Accessing pages, links, and other interactive elements should be possible with a keyboard.
Not sure whether your website follows this rule or not? You can actually test this yourself. Try to use your own site with keyboard only: use Tab key to go forward and Shift + Tab to go backward. If you’re satisfied with the results, your website is good to go.
Don’t block proxies and VPNs
You might have heard that other websites block proxies and VPNs and wondered if you should follow suit. Well, unless you distribute copyrighted material or see visible harm to your site by VPN users, it doesn’t really make sense.
Streaming platforms like Amazon Prime or Netflix actively block VPN users from viewing their content. Since they handle a lot of copyrighted materials, they need to make sure that only viewers in the right locations can watch it.
Other reasons for blocking proxies and VPNs is to mitigate unlawful or harmful behavior. You might notice that online forums do this when they can’t stand any more insistent spam or trolling. Money transfers like PayPal also block VPNs due to fraud risk.
But unless you happen to be in one of these sensitive industries, blocking VPN will likely only mean blocking genuine readers. Acronym for a virtual private network, one of the functions of a VPN is to encrypt online traffic. It protects users from being spied on by governments, Internet Service Providers, or advertisers.
Your readers might be regularly using VPN to stay safe online. Don’t exclude them on the basis of being privacy-conscious.
Caption videos and upload transcripts
Audio and video materials are a fantastic way to enhance your site and make it more engaging. But you should remember that not everyone can hear the sounds in your content. Always add captions to videos and include transcripts if you publish podcasts.
A text transcript can be a separate page or a word document that contains all information from the podcast, including dialogues and descriptions of sound effects. Having a transcript on your site is a win-win as it can improve your SEO.
Alt-text is essential
Blind users or those with impaired vision often use screen readers to navigate the Internet and access online content. But this technology can’t explain the images to them (at least not yet!). That’s why it’s so important to add alt-text to all relevant graphic elements of your website. Alt-text conveys the message of the photo and can be read out loud by the screen reader. Using keywords in your alt-texts can also be an effective way to boost SEO.
Infographics, political cartoons, or photographs that illustrate the story can be crucial to the user’s understanding of the article. We can all agree that some images are so important that the entire article loses its meaning without them. Not including alt-text simply alienates the blind and visually impaired readers.
On the other hand, when an image is used purely for decoration, it might be a good idea to skip alt-text. You don’t want the person listening to the screen reader to get distracted by the intermission.
Deciding when an image is important and when it isn’t might seem confusing. When in doubt, it’s better to add alt-text to too many images rather than skip important ones.
The color scheme matters
If you’ve been around the Internet since the 90s, you’ve seen many awful websites with poor text-to-background contrast that were impossible to read. For users with visual impairment, this effect is a lot stronger, and even acceptable contrast might prove challenging.
When designing your color-scheme, you should make sure that the writing stands out as clearly as possible. Use WebAIM Color Contrast Checker to make sure you’re on the right track.
Be mindful of colors for action items
Color blindness affects approximately 8% of men. No two types of color blindness are the same, but red and green or blue and yellow combinations appear confusing to many. For the elements of your website that should be particularly clear (such as the action items), it’s best to avoid these specific combinations. Placing a red button right next to a green one is misleading and can result in poor user experience.
Enable text resizing
People with visual impairment often resize the text to make it more readable. Your website must support resizing – otherwise, the design could break, or some features could be difficult to interact with it.
Never turn off user scalability as this might stop users from resizing the text in general at all. Using relative sizes will enable the text to scale depending on other content and screen size, making for a better resizing experience.
By resizing the text on your site and seeing how other elements respond to it, you can check whether you comply with the rule.
Jack is an accomplished cybersecurity expert with years of experience under his belt at TechWarn, a trusted digital agency to world-class cybersecurity companies. A passionate digital safety advocate himself, Jack frequently contributes to tech blogs and digital media sharing expert insights on cybersecurity and privacy tools.