Welcome! Tips to Make Your Website Inclusive for People with Disabilities.

Your website is your digital home. It's important to consider how persons with disabilities interact with the web to ensure all potential clients or customers can enter your digital door. 

For individuals with disabilities, poorly designed websites can be difficult to use, reducing your chance of winning the business of this large and vital consumer group. In specific geographic locations, not meeting accessibility requirements can also expose you to legal risk. 

Ensuring your website is accessible can be complex, requiring reviewing your content, site build, navigation, and more. This may be an area where you call in technical reinforcements, but to get started, check out some essential tips below.   

1. Adhere to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): Familiarize yourself with WCAG, an internationally recognized set of guidelines for making web content more accessible. WCAG outlines principles, guidelines, and success criteria for creating accessible websites.

2. Use Semantic HTML: Properly structured HTML provides a foundation for accessibility. Use semantic elements like headings, paragraphs, lists, and links appropriately to enhance the readability and navigability of your content, especially for screen reader users.

3. Provide Alternative Text for Images: Images play a vital role in web design. However, they can be a stumbling block to users who rely on screen readers or have low vision. Include descriptive alternative text (alt text) for images to convey their content and context to those who can't see them.

4. Ensure Keyboard Accessibility: Not all users can use a mouse to navigate a website. Ensure all interactive elements, such as links, buttons, and form fields, are accessible via keyboard navigation. This ensures users can move through your site and interact with its features using only the keyboard.

5. Create Captions and Transcripts for Multimedia:  Make sure that videos and audio content include captions or transcripts to make them accessible to users who are deaf or hard of hearing.  

6. Design for Color Contrast: Consider users with visual impairments or color blindness when choosing color schemes for your website. Ensure sufficient color contrast between text and background elements to improve readability for all users.

7. Implement ARIA Landmarks and Roles: Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) provides additional semantic information to assistive technologies, helping them interpret and interact with dynamic content. Use ARIA landmarks and roles to enhance the accessibility of complex web interfaces and single-page applications.

8. Test with Accessibility Tools and Assistive Technologies: Regularly test your website using accessibility evaluation tools and assistive technologies like screen readers and keyboard-only navigation. Identify and address accessibility barriers to ensure a seamless user experience for all visitors. We recommend reviewing your site once per year. 

9. Provide Clear and Consistent Navigation: Website navigation helps users orient themselves within your site and find the content they seek. Be sure to organize your site logically and use descriptive labels for navigation links to aid users with cognitive or mobility impairments.

10. Seek Feedback from Users with Disabilities: Involve users with disabilities in the testing and feedback process to gain insights into their experiences and challenges when using your website. Their feedback can highlight areas for improvement and help you prioritize accessibility features.
    

Incorporating these tips into your web development process can create a more inclusive online experience for people with disabilities. Accessibility isn't just about compliance—it's about ensuring equal access and opportunity for all users, regardless of their abilities. Get in touch to learn how we can help you ensure your digital presence is accessible to everyone.