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If you made a list of goals for your website, I would say the following three things are near the top.
- Get more value out of your customers.
- find new customers.
- Increase website conversion rates whether you want to generate more leads or generate more sales.
Each of these goals requires a functional and user-friendly website.still amazing 97% of today’s internet This means that there are accessibility issues that can make it difficult for some visitors to navigate your website and engage with its content.
This is a big problem. It’s not just about what’s fair or legally required. (U.S. Department of Justice repeat maintenance The accessibility law is Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to websites and physical locations. )
It’s also a question of what makes sense for your business.
in the United States, 1 in 4 adults From visual impairments that require you to navigate websites using assistive technology such as a screen reader, to hearing impairments that make it difficult to follow videos without captions, you live with a disability. Globally, people with disabilities and their friends and family $13 trillion in disposable income.
There are many potential customers who could be left behind if they don’t take steps to make their website accessible to everyone.
We have good news: every day Accessibility issues can be fixed if you have the right tools and know what to look out for. Below are some helpful accessibility resources.
1. Use alt text correctly
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG), but it also created additional resources Enabling businesses to better navigate digital accessibility.
One of the most useful is alt decision treedescribes how to use an element’s alt attribute in different situations. Decision trees allow you to make faster, more informed decisions about whether your images require alt text, and if so, what information to include.
Alternate text A description of the image that can be read by a screen reader or converted to Braille for people with visual, sensory processing, or learning disabilities.
If you do it right, the alt text will be more complete picture Describe your products and services to people who use screen readers to navigate your website. Unfortunately, many companies forget to provide alt text. Or maybe it’s not there because you’re describing something very generic (e.g. an image of a restaurant menu that simply says “Menu”).
Note: As a general rule, it’s always a good idea to write alt text, like describing an image to a friend over the phone. What are the important details to know to understand the image?
RELATED: How to Make Your Social Media Channels Accessible to Everyone
2. Check website accessibility
When it comes to digital accessibility, one of the biggest challenges is the dynamic nature of most websites. Think about how often your website changes, whether it’s a new product photo or an updated copy of your website.
Every update can inadvertently introduce new accessibility issues to your website, so it’s important to constantly monitor your website. Unfortunately, most companies lack the time or internal resources to test the accessibility of every new design and line of code.That’s where automated solutions like AudioEye come in. website accessibility checker — Runs over 400 tests to check your content against accessible coding standards like WCAG and generates a detailed report of your site’s accessibility issues — is here.
Related: How Website Accessibility Affects Brand Reputation and Success
3. Add automatic captions to your videos
People are watching more video content than ever before, but not adding captions to your videos can leave a large portion of your audience behind.
There are many tools that can automatically generate captions to save you time. However, it’s important to note that speech recognition technology isn’t perfect. It can introduce errors and confuse or frustrate people who rely on captions.
Therefore, it is always recommended to calibrate auto-generated captions with human eyes and ears.
Closed captioning is a great example of how “good” design and “accessible” design overlap. Adding captions not only helps people with hearing or cognitive impairments, but it also helps everyone who chooses to watch a video with the audio off. Or maybe watching your videos while multitasking.
Adding captions can ensure a positive experience regardless of how people consume your content.
Related: How Accessibility Teams and Executives Can Work Together for Disability Inclusion
4. Check color contrast
A website’s colors may seem like a purely aesthetic decision, but how does it make your website easier to use for people with color blindness (also known as color blindness) or other visual impairments? have a great impact on
Low contrast between foreground and background elements (think gray buttons with white text) helps people navigate your site, engage with content, and ultimately take action. becomes difficult. important to your business.
audio eyes color contrast checker You can easily determine if a color meets the WCAG requirements for contrast ratio. To comply with Success Criterion (SC) 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum), contrast ratio At least 4.5:1 between foreground and background colors.
Related: Launching a Business Website? What You Need to Know About Accessibility
Take the first step towards a more accessible website
For most companies, there are two hurdles that can slow their accessibility efforts.
The first hurdle is awareness. Many business her leaders are unaware of digital accessibility or the potential problems it poses for online businesses, both in terms of user experience and legal risks.but Increase in litigation related to digital accessibility The importance of accessibility is getting more and more attention.
The second hurdle is common misconceptions about the cost and difficulty of digital accessibility. Some organizations believe that making websites accessible is too costly or that new websites must be built from scratch. The truth is that there are many things you can do to improve the accessibility of your website without touching a line of code.
To help kick-start your business’s overall accessibility strategy, W3C and British business disability forum has created a self-assessment tool to help organizations understand their current level of accessibility and implement measures to improve accessibility policies, processes, and results.
