Web accessibility is hugely crucial in the present day and age. There is a higher truth that the ease of technology should be extended to the less fortunate individuals as well who are suffering from various physical disabilities. This is one of the primary reasons for Braille embossed buttons on the ATM vending machine as well. The new world has accepted people with disabilities, so you and your campaign domain should follow suit as well.
The Key Benefits of Incorporating Website Accessibility :
Web accessibility: General information
Web accessibility can be defined by steps that ensure that the website can be handled by individuals with specific physical disabilities. You must ensure that even the less fortunate individuals are at ease while using your site. It is extremely beneficial for aged users as well.
There are various facets of your web domain that needs adjustments to cope with the disability barriers that include visual, physical, speech, auditory, cognitive, and neurological disorders. You need to understand the importance of delivering a website specifically curated to general mass that include both able as well as individuals with disabilities. The adaptable features should consist of everything from a typically slow internet connection to a broken arm.
The benefits of web accessibility
According to developers all around the world, there are various benefits that you, as an entrepreneur, can enjoy by making your website accessible to people with disabilities. Here are the major pros of implementing web accessibility tools.
Enhance the site responsiveness
With a properly optimized domain in terms of accessibility, you ensure that every user can use the website the way they want to. Rather than forcing the users to engage, here you are allowing users to take advantage of the features so that navigation to and within site becomes easy. Keep in mind that every user has their personal preference as to the way they navigate within the site and use the keyboard, laptop trackpad, or the desktop mouse.
Disabled individuals make up significant numbers
Here is a fact for you; over 15% of the global population is classed as disabled. In sheer number, this translates into a lot. This means if your site is not tuned to the accessibility complications and you haven’t optimized your domain, you are losing on the traffic front. There are PR consequences as well which might lead to the domain getting blacklisted or having a bad rep. Make sure that your domain doesn’t go anonymous because you didn’t take care of the crucial bits.
For the loyalty and trust metrics
The more you make your domain accessible to the masses, the better is the trust and loyalty metric parameters for your site. People with disabilities are more likely to engage in online shopping, so you need to take care of the accessibility issues sooner than later. It is on you to make sure you provide equal treatment and service with a complete absence of social and physical barriers.
How to go about it?
If you are thinking, designing an accessible domain is difficult, let us assure, it is quite simple with the following guideline. However, it is essential to have hired expert help at hand since there are a lot of technicalities to be concerned with. There are various website accessibility checkers to allow you to perform the necessary steps and implement the modifications.
Start with the title tag
Keep in mind that the modern-day browsers do not show the title tag in the actual text or HTML format. Instead, the tag is located in the URL. Yes, this is the correct way to make sure that the domain is search engine optimized. But this is also crucial when it comes to adding accessibility features for the disabled. If an individual is using screen readers, then the title tags are extremely valuable for navigational purposes. It will enable the sharing of information about the content, programs, and service to every user.
Tables should have descriptive tags
For any tabular data, you need to use the following parameters as often as possible. These are the “captions” and the “scope.” To help people with disabilities using a screen reader understand the content of the table, captions and scopes are vital components. It is incredibly critical to have an understanding of the context and the content of the table and the parameters make sure of it.
The HTML tags
Default HTML tags make sure that the site or the domain is optimized correctly as far as accessibility is concerned. Do not make the anchors work as buttoned since web designers all around the world do not recommend it all. Screen readers work through a specific protocol which makes it essential to use HTML tags for various elements.
About alternative tags
ALT tags or alternative tags are also HTML tags that are incredibly vital and have been in use since the inception of the internet. These were predominantly used by users with a slow internet connection to pause the auto-download of images and media plays. But, these days they are a vital component of the accessibility feature of a website or domain.
Subtitles to support video content
Another critical component for making a website accessible is the use of subtitles and closed captions for video content that include podcasts and audio media as well. There are many situations where the user needs to keep the volume low while playing media content. This is where the subtitles and closed captions play a valuable role.
About keyboard navigation
Here is an expert tip for you; you need to make sure that the website can be used and navigated with only the keyboard without the aid of the mouse or the laptop trackpad. However, keep in mind that screen readers cannot aid users with animated navigation buttons for dropdown menus.
About ARIA
ARIA or the Accessible Rich Internet Application is a set of attributes that you need to comply with for content designed in the JavaScript to aid the individuals with disabilities as far as accessibility is concerned. ARIA is an assistive technology that assists the users with respect to HTML4 tags, Java widgets, and updates on live contents as well as error messages.
Also Read – Website Migration From One cPanel Server To Another
Design your website, keeping the considerations mentioned above in mind to have a complete domain. All the best!