First of all, what is the accessibility of a website?
Web accessibility means making your website usable for everyone, including people who use assistive technology. Accessible websites also usually have great user experience and interface design and great SEO. Web accessibility is measured by several criteria (Which you can find here) and is part of legislation like the ADA in the United States or the Web Accessibility Directive in Europe.
Should all websites be accessible?
Yes! No website is too big or too small, and by not being inclusive you are cutting off a large portion of potential customers and opening your business for legal action.
How do I make my website accessible?
Accessibility is a continuous project far too nuanced to address in one blog post, but you can start with these 5 accessibility features:
1. Write good quality Alt-Tags for your images
When uploading images to your website, describe what the image looks like in the “alt-tag” field. Despite what some advice says, this is not the place for keyword stuffing and your SEO could be penalised. Good alt-tags are straightforward, objective and don’t include “Photo of…”.
Ie: “Mountain landscape on a sunny day”
2. Use descriptive text in your links and CTAs
Avoid using vague button text like “Discover” or “Learn more”. A lot of people navigate websites by pulling up a list of all the links on a page, and if all of them say “Learn more”, it becomes difficult to know where you’re going. Use the text to describe where the link is going like “Find out more about X” or “View all the Y”.
3. Left-align your paragraphs
Text paragraphs are easier to read when every line starts at the same place, so for your longer paragraphs make sure to have the text left-aligned to improve readability.
4. Provide controls for your carousels
Content carousels are the sections in your website that act like slideshows and don’t appear all at once, and they’re not the most accessible. If you like having content or image carousels on your website, make sure controls are available to stop the slideshow and go back and forth between slides. Most web builders have an integrated option for this.
5. Use GIFs and animated text carefully
I get it, animations are very trendy and eye-catching and it’s fun to have a bit of it on your website. They can also be distracting and difficult to read, but there are some ways to make them more accessible. It’s always better to limit them to graphic elements rather than text so it doesn’t affect readability. If you must use animated text, make sure it’s not too fast and that the animation stops after 5 seconds.
Will you be incorporating these into your website?
What else is stopping you from making your website more accessible?
