How to make your website more accessible

How to make your website more accessible

• As a business with an online presence, ensuring everyone visiting your website is able to access the information on your products and services is a key component of success.
• Making your website accessible is also a legal requirement, and if you aren’t already applying the principles of accessible web design, you could be found to be discriminating against disabled people who may find it difficult to use your website.
• Whether you are starting up your business and creating a website for the first time, or a communications professional responsible for updating content on your company website, having a basic understanding of best practice in accessible web design can help you to identify and remove barriers that might prevent disabled people from accessing your web content.
• Here are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to accessible websites.

Consistency is key

Your navigational structure, colour schemes, and layouts should be fairly consistent to aid both usability and understanding. A simple page layout that is easy to navigate will benefit all visitors to your site, not just those with disabilities.

Keep your colour contrast in check

People with sight loss or colour-blindness may find it difficult to access information on your website without sufficient colour contrast between text and backgrounds. If the colour and/or shade of text and background are too similar, it can be hard for some people to pick out the text from the background.

For advice on what is an acceptable level of contrast between text and backgrounds, refer to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). WebAIM has a free online tool you can use to check whether your colour contrast meets these guidelines.

Provide information in alternative formats wherever possible

This goes beyond just providing alt-text for images (descriptions for images for screen readers) and captions for video. For example, providing downloadable transcripts for videos, animations, content displayed via applets and other complex media can aid people with varying impairments, such as learning disabilities, dyslexia, hearing and visual impairments.

You could also consider providing easy-read versions of longer or more complex documents, for people whose disabilities mean they struggle to understand or retain information presented in this way.

Our Inclusive Communication Toolkit has an example template of an easy-read document that BDF Members and Partners can use for more information.

Be wary of your usage of colour, shape, size or other sensory characteristics

Don’t rely on colour, shape or size alone to convey information. For example, if you use a red button for stop and a green button for go, include those words as screen reader-accessible text on the buttons as well, so that people who can’t

For example, a red button won’t be easily identifiable by a person with colour-blindness, in the same way that a blind person would be unable to use an animated CAPTCHA test that asked them to select the triangular object.

Use appropriate document structure

Using section headings, lists and other structural elements to provide meaning and structure to your web pages. Structuring your content not only aids comprehension, but can also make it easier for users of assistive technology such as screen readers.

Make sure your copy is clearly written and easy to understand

Don’t forget that it’s not just about technical accessibility. As with all communications, your online copy should be easy to understand, avoiding the overuse of jargon and long, complicated sentence structures.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

The Worldwide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 are generally viewed as the standard by which accessibility of all websites should be measured. WCAG 2.0 provides guidelines for making web content accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities, as well as success criteria in the form of testable statements.

Whether you have developed your website in-house or used an external agency, understanding the principles of the WCAG 2.0 will help you to spot potential areas for improvement throughout your website.

The full WCAG 2.0 is available online (visit w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/).