The Importance of Accessible Web Design

Making your website accessible to as many people as possible sounds like the obvious choice, but what is website accessibility and how can it help my business?

Well, putting it quite simply, disabled people use computers as well but not necessarily in the same way as able-bodied people, and making it easier for disabled people can have a surprisingly good effect on your SEO ranking as well as the obvious advantages of reaching more potential customers.

How can I make my website accessible?

The main thing is you need to consider is the way people use their computers, for example, people with visual impairments may require a high contrast colour scheme so that they can clearly see the information on your website, but it doesn’t end there. People who are blind will use software called a screen reader which reads out the information on the page but it doesn’t end there either. What about when a screen reader comes to a picture? How do you read a picture out loud? That’s where coding comes into it and making sure that the images on your website have well-written alt tags.

What’s an alt tag?

Alt tags are elements within HTML, the language that is used to make websites, and every photo should have one attached so that visually impaired people using screen readers know exactly what is on the page with the software comes to describing a photograph. Search engines will generally give better ranking to websites that have included alt tags and therefore given consideration to disabled people visiting your website.

Keyboard navigation

People who struggle to operate a computer with a mouse or trackpad may use a single button or even voice control to navigate a website and that’s where the keyboard navigation comes into play. This site has it included and you can jump between links on the page by pressing the Tab button then hitting the Enter or Return button when you’re on the link you want to visit.

Is that all I need to consider?

Those are two of the most important website accessibility options that need to be considered but there are a whole lot of other options which can be explored. Please get in touch for more details.

Visiting websites like abilitynet.org.uk can furnish you with lots more information on this subject.

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