numerous opportunities for people to access vital information, make bank transactions, purchase goods, and more. Unfortunately, this wealth of benefits of the internet can be a lot harder for people living with disabilities to obtain.
A large percentage of public and commercial websites are still not accessible completely to people with disabilities that depend on assistive technology to access the web. It is beyond time that this situation changes. Web designers must use AI-based resources offered by companies like AccessiBe to make websites accessible.
AccessiBe underlines certain basic yet effective ways to make a website more accessible
Around 15% of the world’s population has a permanent disability of some form. There are also people with temporary disabilities like musculoskeletal injuries that impede movement. Age-related, degenerative disabilities like low vision are also common. Disability can considerably limit how a person interacts with their environment, including the internet. Fully accessible websites, along with assistive technology and devices, significantly aid users with disabilities enjoy the benefits of the internet.
Here are a few simple but efficient ways of making a website more accessible:
- Proper HTML markup: It is imperative to place headers in a systematic order, no matter whether a web designer manually enters HTML or not. Screen readers that articulate information on the web page use headers as guideposts. In case headers are not properly used or the HTML of the page is messy, users with screen readers can face problems in navigating. H1 element must be used for the prime ideas on the page with subsequent headings like H2, H3, and so on. This will help the users to understand the page and the relationship between its elements.
- Descriptive image alt text: People using screen readers depend on alt text to learn about a displayed image. It can be confusing for the users if the alt text does not properly indicate what is in the image. The alt text description must be accurate but not too wordy. It can be a good practice to avoid using an image as a navigation element.
- Smart color selection: Red-green color deficiency is the most common form of color deficiency. Hence, only using these colors can prevent a large number of people from understanding the content present on the web page. A lot of people with learning and vision disabilities, however, do benefit when proper color contrast is used to differentiate and organize online content. It is imperative to see to it that varied blocks of content can be distinguished from one another by using visual separations like borders and whitespace.
- Ensure the website can be navigated by only the keyboard: It can be a huge hassle for people using alternative input devices to navigate infinitely scrolling websites with asymmetrical layouts. On many web pages, highlighting a designated dropdown button using the keyboard is not enough to activate the dropdown. As a result, keyboard-only users are not able to access those webpage options. These design choices must be avoided to make a website properly accessible. Adding skip links at the start of the webpage will allow keyboard-only users to skim the content without having to navigate the entire webpage.
AccessiBe offers a wide variety of customizable accessibility settings to suit diverse user preferences and accessibility needs. This company makes use of AI-enabled tools to help their clients to create accessible websites.
