How to Incorporate Accessibility into Your Website and Why?
Giving everyone the ability regardless of their condition to have access and be able to navigate all aspects of your website.
Did you know that 1 in 4 adults in the United States has some type of disability.
You want your website to be accessible to any user, anywhere, at anytime.
Not only is it important for your website to be accessible by anyone with a disability, many organizations are legally required to have their website comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
How to Make your Website Accessible?
Alt-Tags
Use Alt tags to describe an image. The Alt text is read aloud by screen readers used by visually impaired users.
Caption tags within tables
Use caption tags to introduce context or title a table.
Navigation
Provide ways to help users navigate, find content, and determine where they are. Interactive and navigation elements should be easily accessible by keyboard tabbing.
Seizures and Physical Reactions
Do not design content in a way that is known to cause seizures or physical reactions.
Enough Time
Provide users enough time to read and use content.
Use Default HTML Tags
Structural, semantic HTML is the key starting point toward good accessibility practices, allowing a screen reader or any sort of assistive device to scan a web page.
Closed Captions for Media
Video or Audio elements on your websites should have captions, as to accommodate for users who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Use the ARIA Tag
The aria-label attribute is for interactive elements and provides the text label for an object, such as a button. When a screen reader encounters the object, the aria-label text is read.
How to test for compliance?
There are many online accessibility tools that you can use to check and validate your websites compliances to accessibility, such as Wave, Color Oracle, and Imagine Analyzer.
According to the Bureau of Internet Accessibility, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provides the best framework for achieving accessibility.
The WCAG brakes down Accessibility testing for:
1. Visual disabilities
2. Auditory disabilities
3. Cognitive, learning, and neurological disabilities
4. Physical disabilities
5. Speech disabilities
In Summary…
Design and develop with everyone in mind. Increase your audience reach. Make better websites.
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