How To Design Your Website To Be Accessible To Everyone

 Imagine you are designing a website to diversify your business and attract more customers. However, you are not getting the results that you have been aiming for. A major reason behind that could be website accessibility. Luckily, there are many web accessibility companies out there that design websites and conduct web accessibility audits to help people with these issues.

With the rapid digitalization across the world, websites are now an integral part of any business, firm, or organization. Thus, your websites need to be accessible to everyone. Otherwise, you might end up losing a large share of your revenue.

Important Steps To Make Your Website Accessible
Many of us may be unaware of the steps and procedures for making our websites easily accessible to everyone. It allows people with disabilities and physical restraints to have a user-friendly experience with the website.
There are multiple steps to make your website accessible to everyone. Some of the most important ones are given as follows.

Keeping The Website Keyboard Friendly
In simple words, keeping the website keyboard-friendly means that the website is accessible without the use of a mouse. Many assistive technologies for people with disabilities are majorly dependent on keyboard use. So, your website must allow such users to use the website’s major features without the use of a mouse.
So, accessing all pages, links, features, and contents of your website must be keyboard-friendly. Make sure to break down the long pages into multiple sections with anchor links. Allow a “Skip to main content” option on your website to keep it keyboard-friendly. These are a few of the many ways you can keep your website keyboard-friendly.

ADA Compliance For Websites
To make your website easily accessible to everyone, you must follow the ADA compliance guidelines. ADA compliance stands for Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design. It is a list of guidelines and procedures to follow while designing your websites. Making your websites ADA compliant allows disabled people to have easy access to your website.

You must follow the guidelines and checklist of ADA compliance when you are designing your websites. This should be equally followed by all public and private organizations, businesses, and service providers. Thus, you can ensure a better user experience and easy accessibility to your websites.

Making Dynamic Content Accessible
By dynamic content, we refer to the content of a page that can change or be updated without reloading that page. When a website has dynamic content, it means that there are frequent shifts or updates to that content. So, the designers need to make sure that the dynamic content is easily and smoothly accessible by everyone.

To make dynamic content accessible on your websites, you can add multiple assistive tools to the website. As a result, the user will not miss the content or face difficulties reaching it. The assistive tools may include ARIA roles and alerts. You can also make sure that videos are accessible by keyboard and do not auto-play. Thus, you can make dynamic content accessible.

Include Proper Alt Text For Images
Alt texts are an essential part of a website with images. It provides an easy explanation of the message of an image used on the website. For screen reader users, it is a vital feature. Especially when it comes to multiple images and infographics, alt texts are very important. It is one of the most important components of making your website accessible to everyone.

When you are creating an alt text, make sure that you are using basic and simple explanations. So, the users will understand the message conveyed by the image without difficulty. At the same time, if there is text included in the image, make sure to include those words in your alt text. It is a vital part of making your websites easily accessible.

What Happens If You Do Not Follow The Website Accessibility Guidelines
Website accessibility guidelines are constructed in a way to allow disabled people, people with injuries, and many other physical constraints to have easy access to your websites. Without these features, your website becomes complex and inaccessible. The target audience and customers struggle to access your content. So, the purpose of the website becomes futile.

So, it is immensely important that your website follows the accessibility guidelines. In that way, you can create a better experience for your audience. General people, irrespective of their disability or impairment, will be able to access your website and all its contents.

Original Source- https://adaforweb.com/how-to-design-your-website-to-be-accessible-to-everyone/