Having a great website means checking off multiple boxes, including visually appealing, good if not great content, optimized SEO, strong CTAs, great images, and fantastic navigation. But a subject that is often overlooked is accessibility. Is your website accessible to all people, including people with disabilities? As a leading web design company, we have experience in creating sites that can be used by everyone. That’s why we wanted to share our 7 tips to meet website accessibility standards to capture 20% more web traffic.
Why is accessibility of websites important?
Unfortunately, web accessibility is sometimes viewed through a narrow lens, taking into account only those with average hearing, vision or input capabilities. However, about 20% of our population (57 million people) have some form of disability. By not having a site that is fully accessible to everyone, you may miss 20% of all available web traffic.
In addition, there are other factors to consider
Reputation – In many cases, a company that does not meet certain moral or ethical standards is on the receiving end of a public response. Giving everyone equal access is an area under that umbrella. So if you are not fully accessible, it can negatively affect your reputation.
Loyalty – If your site isn’t easy to use for a customer but a competitive site, who do you think will get more business done and loyalty earned over time? A significant percentage of people with disabilities prefer to shop online because it is easier. You can promote loyalty among users who value companies that ensure everyone is fully accessible.
Conversions – About 18% of all adults in the United States have difficulty hearing. About 8% have vision problems. These numbers represent conversions that could simply be lost due to the inattention of your site’s overall usability to all potential customers. 7 tips to meet the standards of website accessibility.
Web developers and designers who understand the need for accessibility for all potential users use the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative guidelines to ensure that sites are properly optimized.
Here are 7 tips that every site should include to increase website accessibility
Fully Responsive Site – A fully responsive website design ensures that all users have easy access and visibility, regardless of the size of the screen or device used to access the site.
Alt tags on images – Some people rely on screen readers, renewable braille displays or other technologies to access information displayed on a website. However, these tools cannot interpret images such as graphics, graphs, graphics or photos. Therefore, each image must also contain an Alt tag. An Alt tag is a simple piece of HTML that provides a text description of what the image contains or conveys.
Proper TTB Ratio – The text-to-background web page ratio is important to a user’s overall ability to read a website. Some designers reduce the contrast between text and background for aesthetic purposes. This can negatively affect accessibility. The ideal ratio for each W3C is 4: 5: 1 and should be used on all pages.
Caption video captions – Just like when adding Alt tags for images, captions should be included with videos. In addition to helping people with hearing loss better understand the video content, there are situations where people want to watch a video without sound.
Spacing and Font Size – As with the TTB ratio, there are specific parameters to use for font and spacing to ensure legibility. The font must be at least 16 pixels. This may come as a shock to some, as people regularly use 12 pixels, which is closer to a 12-point font on documents. Anything less than 16 pixels reduces readability and comprehension. The distance between the lines should be 25 percent of the font size. Also, the space between paragraphs must be at least 1.5 times the size of the line height.
Improved navigation – There are a few ways to access navigation. In addition to using intuitive and general navigation design elements, there should be a focus on keyboard navigation on your site as not everyone can use a mouse. In addition, images and symbols should be emphasized to make navigation and movement as clear as possible.
Assistive Technology Included – Each site should work with common assistive technology such as screen readers and language plugins to allow maximum accessibility for users. There are also things like several accessibility features for Windows or Mac to consider. Another important consideration when designing for full accessibility is to remember that all site testing should include disabled users within the test group. In this way, feedback from tests will include all potential users and not just 80% of users.
It comes down to
The bottom line is that everyone should have full access to all websites on the internet. The purpose of the internet was to share information and it is not only ethically and morally correct, but also makes the most sense in business terms. Our 7 tips to meet website accessibility standards help ensure that your site meets every customer’s needs without alienating anyone, leading to loss of conversions and revenue.
