Is your website accessible?

While we spend a lot of time discovering who our audience types are, what they do, how they behave and what brands they love – understanding their way of accessing the web can often be overlooked. Because there is such a diverse spectrum of people who access the web, it is imperative that we do all we can to ensure it is inclusive and accessible to all.

Some users may have impaired vision and need to use screen readers, some may be colourblind and need accessible colour contrasts, those with hearing impairments may require subtitles, others who have motor impairments may require well structured content to navigate through. Whether you are disabled or otherwise, the web is an incredible tool that shouldn’t exclude anybody.

It can be hard to advocate for accessibility when you’re talking to people who might not depend on it, and don't understand the need.

But there are lots of ways that you can help ensure accessibility is given the attention it deserves and to ensure it’s accommodated for in any digital project you’re embarking upon.

• Stats
  A lot of key stakeholders will want to know the numbers, so having some solid statistics at hand is always a good way to prove the viability. Once you have stakeholder buy-in, it’s a lot easier to find support from other people on the team. A good discovery session can be key to learning more about your user base and how they access and interact with your current website.
  
• Experiences
  Stats win over the numbers people, but real life stories are even more solid in getting people to buy in. If you know of any struggles that people have had using your website in the past that have been directly affected by poor accessibility then you’ve got more reason to advocate for a more inclusive and accessible website. User testing with a set group of people who rely on websites being accessible will give you a better understanding of what’s working and what isn’t. You can also use tools such as heat mapping and accessibility compliance tools to help back up these experiences.
  
• Increased Market
  Accessibility is good for business. If more people can access and use your site, then your market is bigger. It’s as simple as that! Excluding anybody from your website means that you’re missing out on crucial business. The more accessible your site, the more people can access it.
  
• Legal Risks
  In the UK at least, the legal requirements for accessibility are becoming stricter. The Equality Act 2010 covers web accessibility, and protects people from unfair treatment on the web, promoting a fairer and more inclusive web. Site owners are required to make reasonable adjustments to make their sites accessible to people with disabilities. You may have seen certain cases in the UK and the US following inaccessible websites. In 2019, a blind user sued Dominos after he was unable to order food through their app because it did not work with his screen reader. Later that year a lawsuit was filed against beyonce.com for failing to accommodate for visually impaired users.

The following is just some examples of how the web can be made more accessible for everybody, of all abilities.

• HTML
  Not only is writing well structured HTML best practice for your site, it is essential for those who depend on screen readers. Your HTML should include: Alt text for every image, ARIA attributes, language markers, short links, semantic tags and clear page hierarchy.
  
• Colour Contrast
  This feels like a no-brainer, but it is a very common issue across the web. Ensuring that you’re working with contrasting colours is make or break, especially for somebody who is visually impaired. The WebAIM contrast checker is a great tool to ensure that you’re passing WCAG standards when it comes to choosing colours. You can input your hex codes, and test foreground and background colours against each other for the contrast ratio.
  
• Reduced Motion
  It might be an appealing creative choice to have a lot of movement and motion within your site, but there should be a limit at which you implement this, as it can have an adverse effect on people who are more prone to dizziness or distraction. The last thing you want is to alienate users for the sake of flashy motion graphics. We suggest avoiding rapid animation styles and keeping it subtle. Some browsers and operating systems already have built in tools to help users reduce motion, but it should always be a consideration within the actual web build itself.
  
• Legible Fonts
  Some fonts are easier to read than others, and we should be aware of that when designing for the web. Body copy can appear in smaller sizes, and therefore needs to be a font that is legible, simple and unembellished. As well as primary font choices, fallback fonts should be implemented within your site, so that a web safe font can be used if necessary. Don’t embed fonts into images either, screen readers can not pick this text up, so those who need them won’t be able to consume that media. Image alt text is helpful here, but images and text should really be rendered separately.
• Minimum Text Sizing
  As well as good font choices, you should be aware of your text sizes. For large areas of copy, a minimum of 16px in size is usually the safest option. This means that paragraphs can be read easily by default, without a user requiring zoom functions or text modifiers.
• Small file sizes
  We can sometimes take our fast internet speeds for granted, especially when we're using a computer with a strong connection. While the UK is phasing out 3G networks, that doesn't mean that there aren't users out there with poorer connections, or a weak broadband signal. We can make this experience better by making sure our websites aren't data heavy. We implement an image optimiser into our websites in order to help keep images low in file size, and therefore easier to download on the network. 

As well as accessibility ensuring you are meeting the standards required and making the web an inclusive place for those who may have impairments, there are other reasons why accessibility is beneficial to prioritise.

• Accessibility doesn’t just benefit those who may have impairments
  The spectrum of accessibility benefits everybody. Have you ever had a friend who watched TV with subtitles despite having perfect hearing? Some people prefer to process information in different ways and it’s great to have options.
  
• Audiences appreciate usability over aesthetics
  While it’s great to have a beautiful site, it’s always better to have a useful site. Most of the time people are visiting your site to accomplish a task, removing any barriers to them completing that task makes your website more appealing.
  
• SEO boost
  Google does not explicitly rank for accessibility factors, but it does rank based on the user experience. Websites that prioritise accessibility will likely have better engagement seen in analytics. Both SEO and accessibility practices are designed to create a better experience for users.

In summary, accessibility matters. You have a duty to your audience to ensure that they can easily access and use your website. Inclusive websites make the internet a better place for everybody and we need to be a part of that.

At Nzime, we put accessibility at the heart of our projects. Prioritising our user needs from discovery to launch. We understand the importance of a user experience that makes your website work for everyone.

The A11y Project

You might have seen the term ‘a11y’ around the internet at some point. This is an shortened term sometimes used to abbreviate ‘Accessibility’, as there are 11 letters between the ‘a’ and ‘y’. This term was created by The A11y Project and it is used to identify content related specifically to digital accessibility.

W3.org

The World Wide Web Consortium is an organisation that works to develop web standards. They have a lot of resources available around web accessibility.

WebAIM

WebAIM’s goal is to make the web as accessible as possible for everybody. The help educate web builders, and encourages them to share and advocate for better inclusion across the web.