Today, ensuring websites are accessible to all, including those with disabilities, is not optional. Around 1.3 billion people, which is 16% of the world’s population, are living with some form of disability, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Given the numbers, accessible web development is a fundamental necessity that enhances website visibility, engagement, and experience for all. 

An accessible website allows users with disabilities, including physical, visual, cognitive, auditory, and neurological impairments, to perceive, navigate, and engage with the web content. 

Along with fostering inclusivity, web accessibility also supports SEO efforts, expands the audience, and reduces compliance issues. This highlights the significance of web design accessibility in future-proofing your business. 

This blog delves deeper into the key principles of web accessibility and how you can design for all and make your website digitally inclusive and compliant. 

Ready to learn? Let’s dive in. 

What is Web Accessibility, and Why is It Important?

Web accessibility, or accessible web development, refers to designing and developing websites and web apps that everyone, including people with disabilities, can use seamlessly. 

Disabilities can be in any form: motor, visual, cognitive, or auditory. The goal of accessible websites is to ensure digital inclusion, where every user, regardless of their abilities and disabilities, can access and engage with the web content without any difficulties and barriers. 

Why Does Web Accessibility Matter?

• SEO benefits: 

Search engines embrace accessibility. Accessible websites are more likely to outperform in search engines as they implement best practices for semantic HTML. Besides, accessible websites offer alt-texts for images, which enhances SEO efforts. 

• Inclusive designs: 

Accessible websites help expand your audience by allowing you to tap into a broader customer base, regardless of abilities and disabilities. This also increases engagement and enhances user experience. 

• Legal requirements: 

Many countries have strict rules and regulations pertaining to website being accessible. For instance, the USA makes it mandatory for businesses to cater to ADA compliance. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) includes making websites accessible to all users. 

• Social responsibilities: 

Along with being compliant with legal requirements, designing accessible websites highlights your commitment to social responsibility. Accessible websites are sites that are developed for everyone, making sure that no users are left behind. 

What are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)?

The World Wide Web Consortium has introduced the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are web accessibility standards that ensure that digital assets are accessible to users with disabilities. WCAG compliance defines how developers should design and code websites to ensure accessibility. 

The WCAG revolves around four principles, setting the foundation for everyone accessing and engaging with web content. The four web accessibility principles are often referred to as POUR, which is defined as –  

• Perceivable: Website information should be accessible and understandable by all people in ways they can easily perceive the content. Every website should provide text alternatives for all non-text content, and the content should be made easier for people to see and hear.  
• Operable: This ensures that all end users must be capable of interacting with all webpage elements. For instance, your site should provide seamless navigation and easy operation. Ensure all functionalities are readily available on a keyboard to make your websites operable. Also, to ensure an inclusive UX, offer ways to guide users to navigate and find content conveniently. 
• Understandable: Ensure an inclusive user interface to make your information and operations easy and understandable. Make the texts readable and comprehensible, and ensure that the web pages appear and operate seamlessly and in predictable ways. 
• Robust: Make content robust to ensure reliable interpretation by multiple user agents. Also, ensure compatibility with current and future user agents and assistive technologies. 

Steps to Make a Website Accessible to Make It Inclusive and Compliant

Along with following the POUR principle, here are some additional accessibility standards to make your website inclusive and compliant. 

1. Understand Your Audience:

The first step is to understand your audience’s diverse needs and abilities. Conduct in-depth user research to gain insights into the challenges, preferences, and needs of different customer groups. 

Having insights into your audience will help you ensure accessible UX designs that address a broader customer base with different needs and abilities. 

For example, if you are building a website for online learning, the potential audience includes students and educators, including learners with motor disabilities, visual impairments, and cognitive challenges. Suppose learners with dyslexia can benefit from text-to-speech features or customizable typography. 

You can conduct user research through surveys and interviews to assess user needs and future barriers and craft accessible UI/UX designs. 

2. Prioritize Clarity:

Prioritizing clean, simple, and minimal design is the key to attracting a broader audience with different needs. An uncluttered interface and a seamless navigation allow users, especially those with cognitive impairments, to easily interact with the site’s content effectively. 

3. Practice Soothing Color Contrast:

Consider the color contrast when designing your website. A soothing color scheme is best for ensuring readability and visibility. Adequate color contrast makes content more accessible to users with reduced vision or color blindness. 

For example, enterprises like Twitter practice high-contrast schemes, allowing users to adjust to maintain a robust color contrast between background and text. Inclusive web designs,  including high-contrast settings, enhance readability, ensuring that the platform is accessible to a broader audience. 

4. Provide Alt Texts:

Provide descriptive alt texts for icons, images, and non-text elements. Alt texts, or alternative texts, ensure that readers can interpret the content of visual elements for those with blindness and low vision. 

5. Ensure Keyboard Navigation:

Your user interface should be easily accessible and navigable with the keyboard. It is highly beneficial to customers with motor impairments, as they might find using a mouse to navigate and interact with website elements challenging. To implement keyboard navigation, you can partner with the best web design company like Unified Infotech, offering years of experience and expertise, technology-agnostic solutions, scalability and flexibility support, seamless communication, an array of industry-best services, security best practices, support, and maintenance. 

6. Consider Semantic HTML:

Semantic HTML is essential to enhance accessibility and readability. With semantic HTML, businesses can structure content in a way that is easily readable, meaningful, understandable, and navigable for assistive technologies. 

This approach allows visitors to navigate and interpret content effectively by ensuring a seamless understanding of the site’s layout. 

Semantic HTML Principles

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In addition to the above, to ensure high-performance accessible web development, you can recommend using customizable options, promote inclusive designs, and evaluate user feedback. Some common tools you can leverage for accessibility testing include Axe, WAVE, and Lighthouse. 

Final Thoughts

Accessible websites are beyond just a checkbox in the final custom web design and development process. Instead, it is a mindset that shapes every aspect of the development project. From designing the wireframe to finally releasing the product, prioritizing accessibility in every step ensures that your website and web apps are usable by every user. 

However, accessibility is an ongoing process. It involves regularly testing your website, scaling web accessibility features, seeking user feedback, and staying updated with evolving trends and standards.  

To make the process seamless, you can partner with a custom web design company and create inclusive, compliant, and engaging websites that are accessible to all, regardless of their abilities and disabilities. 

Get a No-obligations Web Accessibility Audit Today with Unified Infotech.