What Design Elements Make Your Website Accessible?
You will hear so many opinions online on what makes a good website. Different factors come into play, but one aspect that should be considered in all your design choices should be accessibility. When you make use of responsive web design that is easier to navigate for users with disabilities, you naturally improve the user experience for everyone.
Using skilled web design services, you can make your website accessible without sacrificing any aesthetic qualities you want to preserve. With proper execution, you would simply be making your website easier to understand, interact with, navigate, and perceive. So many elements make up a site, so let’s break down what makes them accessible.
Clear and Readable Text Hierarchy
Font face and size should be clear and readable whether a user is using a widescreen monitor or a mobile device. This should then be coupled with proper text hierarchy, which means using proper structure, headings, titles, and the like. You need to distinguish these labels by visually showing the order in which text is meant to be read.
This is a good practice followed in SEO anyway, so it shouldn’t be hard to implement for the sake of easier reading and catering to assistive screen readers.
Alt-Text
Since websites are primarily visual media, you end up with numerous images and graphics as part of your web design. Make every image more accessible by adding alternative text, which is a clear description of the image and its context within the page. This usually appears when the user hovers over an image or uses an assistive reading device.
Any text within images (which should be avoided in favor of live text) should also be described in alt-text. In fact, how optimized your alt-text is will even have a significant impact on your search engine results.
Increased Contrast and Color Distinction
There is a notion that high-contrast automatically means using an ‘ugly’ color scheme. However, you can still create a beautiful design that fits your brand palette as long as you create a distinctive visual separation between background and foreground colors.
You should also make your text color a stark contrast to the background. A solid level of contrast throughout your website should make it more accessible for individuals with visual disabilities.
Short Blocks of Content
It’s good practice to keep things short to make things highly legible. In general, people tend to avoid reading huge blocks of text, anyway. From an accessibility standpoint, large text blocks are also harder to distinguish and digest. Try not to go over 80 characters when writing lines of text.
ARIA Labels
A site can have so many assets, be it forms, sections, or interactive links. This is what makes Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) labels so important to have.
These labels highlight each of those assets and make landmark items easy to identify. So, users with assistive devices and even those going mouse-free will still be able to interact with your website.
Conclusion
The internet has become an inescapable part of society, for better or worse. Since consumers from all walks of life are now turning to the internet to seek out services and information, it’s best to cater to them with the right platform. Accessible and responsive web design will not only expand your pool of consumers but improve your lead generation.
Get some peace of mind knowing your business is accessible and welcoming. Brikwoo Creative Group is a web design agency in Chattanooga, TN, that specializes in helping faithful business owners achieve their goals. Schedule your free discovery call with us today.
Using skilled web design services, you can make your website accessible without sacrificing any aesthetic qualities you want to preserve. With proper execution, you would simply be making your website easier to understand, interact with, navigate, and perceive. So many elements make up a site, so let’s break down what makes them accessible.
Clear and Readable Text Hierarchy
Font face and size should be clear and readable whether a user is using a widescreen monitor or a mobile device. This should then be coupled with proper text hierarchy, which means using proper structure, headings, titles, and the like. You need to distinguish these labels by visually showing the order in which text is meant to be read.
This is a good practice followed in SEO anyway, so it shouldn’t be hard to implement for the sake of easier reading and catering to assistive screen readers.
Alt-Text
Since websites are primarily visual media, you end up with numerous images and graphics as part of your web design. Make every image more accessible by adding alternative text, which is a clear description of the image and its context within the page. This usually appears when the user hovers over an image or uses an assistive reading device.
Any text within images (which should be avoided in favor of live text) should also be described in alt-text. In fact, how optimized your alt-text is will even have a significant impact on your search engine results.
Increased Contrast and Color Distinction
There is a notion that high-contrast automatically means using an ‘ugly’ color scheme. However, you can still create a beautiful design that fits your brand palette as long as you create a distinctive visual separation between background and foreground colors.
You should also make your text color a stark contrast to the background. A solid level of contrast throughout your website should make it more accessible for individuals with visual disabilities.
Short Blocks of Content
It’s good practice to keep things short to make things highly legible. In general, people tend to avoid reading huge blocks of text, anyway. From an accessibility standpoint, large text blocks are also harder to distinguish and digest. Try not to go over 80 characters when writing lines of text.
ARIA Labels
A site can have so many assets, be it forms, sections, or interactive links. This is what makes Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) labels so important to have.
These labels highlight each of those assets and make landmark items easy to identify. So, users with assistive devices and even those going mouse-free will still be able to interact with your website.
Conclusion
The internet has become an inescapable part of society, for better or worse. Since consumers from all walks of life are now turning to the internet to seek out services and information, it’s best to cater to them with the right platform. Accessible and responsive web design will not only expand your pool of consumers but improve your lead generation.
Get some peace of mind knowing your business is accessible and welcoming. Brikwoo Creative Group is a web design agency in Chattanooga, TN, that specializes in helping faithful business owners achieve their goals. Schedule your free discovery call with us today.
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