In layman’s terms website accessibility means making sure everyone can use your website without any problems including people with disabilities. It promotes equal access and opportunity to people with disabilities. But web accessibility is not limited to this. It also benefits others, including older people with diminishing abilities.

Making your website accessible is an effective way to improve the usability of your website. It means that more people can use your website. This can increase your reach and improve your chances of success whether you use your website to do business or simply to offer information. For businesses, accessibility can also help boost sales and revenues.

1. Make Sure Website Is 508 Compliant

There are two main website accessibility guidelines that you can follow to make sure your website can be accessed seamlessly by disabled users – the Section 508 technical standards or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by W3C.

These guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities, for example the mobility impaired or blind. They recommend specific things you must do when designing your website.

Most of these recommendations are fairly simple e.g. using alternative text for images. However, they are frequently ignored.

2. Use Validate Mark-Up

Valid website code including HTML and CSS promotes good accessibility and reduces compatibility issues. On the other hand websites with invalid code can sometimes pose problems for assistive technology in spite of functioning properly on browsers.

Valid code is often more dependably and offers several advantages. It ensures websites work as expected and appear consistent on different browsers and devices. It is Valid code also makes it easier to locate problems and to troubleshoot.

It is very easy to validate your code and check for errors. There are many free tools that you can use e.g. W3C’s Markup Validation Service and CSS Validation Service.

3. Create Accessible Forms

Forms are very useful for generating leads and an essential element of most websites. They are used to register or login on a website, sign up to newsletters, make an enquiry, and more.

Although good form design is high on the priority of web designers, the accessibility issues are easily overlooked. It is very important to ensure the forms on your website are accessible to everyone, even those who use screen readers to access your website. Lack of accessible forms, will mean that some users will not be able to use this very important feature of your website.

By following simple web form accessibility techniques, you can make sure your forms are accessible to all including those how use screen readers.  A simple example of this to use a label for all form fields. This ensures screen reader users can hear what the purpose of each form field is clearly in order to use the form correctly.

4. Use JavaScript To Create Accessible Websites

JavaScript is a scripting language used to make websites more dynamic e.g. by responding to user actions such as mouse movements, by updating a page automatically , or to pop up dialog boxes. It is also used for creating innovative navigation.

JavaScript can also be used to create more accessible web pages. One example of this is tables that can cause problems for users with screen readers.  A script can be used to transform tables into more accessible formats.

Similarly, frames can also be a problem on small screens and some screen readers. A script can allow users to select the <NOFRAMES> version of the page.

JavaScript could also be used to create page navigation aids or summaries of long documents that can be hard to navigate.

Tips for creating accessible scripts:

• Provide a mechanism for the user to freeze or slow-down any moving or blinking objects
• Provide a <NOSCRIPT> option for all scripts
• Make scripts and applets keyboard operable
• Trigger events with active input from users e.g.  mouse click or key press rather than non-active triggers e.g. when a page is loaded, after a certain amount of time has expired

5. Test Thoroughly

Testing is very important in Web design but is often overlooked. Proper testing is key to creating accessible websites, and avoids disappointments in future. There are various aspects of your website that you can test to ensure your website is accessible.

There are many free tools that you can use. We have already discussed W3C’s accessibility and CSS validation tools. Wave is another great free web accessibility tool to test your website in detail.

Conclusion

Website accessibility is very important but often neglected. It will improve the overall usability of your website. For businesses, its is even more important as it means more people can visit your website. Thus in-turn improves your chances of success. Best of all, it can be achieved with little effort as a majority of the web accessibility guidelines are fairly simple to implement.

What About You?

Do you know if your website is accessible to all including old people with reduced abilities and people who suffer from disabilities?

For businesses, making sure your website is accessible This improves your chances of doing well as more people can visit your website.