Why Website Accessibility is so Important
User Experience
This edition is all about user experience, including the importance and ways to improve the user experience.
Why Accessibility is Important
Accessibility is about ensuring that everyone, regardless of their abilities, can access and use your website. This means that people with disabilities should be able to navigate your website using assistive technologies like screen readers or keyboard-only navigation. In addition to being the right thing to do, there are several reasons why accessibility is important for your website:
Legal Compliance – There are laws in many countries that require websites to be accessible to people with disabilities. Failure to comply with these laws can result in legal action and penalties.
Business Opportunities – By making your website more accessible, you can tap into a large market of people with disabilities who are looking for products and services online. Making your website more accessible can also improve your search engine rankings, as Google and other search engines prioritize accessible websites.
Improved User Experience – Making your website more accessible can improve the user experience for everyone, not just people with disabilities. For example, optimizing your website for keyboard-only navigation can make it easier for people to navigate your website using just the keyboard, which is useful for people who prefer not to use a mouse.
Tips for Improving Website Accessibility
- Make Your Website Keyboard Accessible
One of the most important steps you can take to improve website accessibility is to make your website keyboard accessible. This means that people should be able to navigate your website using just the keyboard, without having to use a mouse. This is important for people with disabilities who may not be able to use a mouse, as well as for people who prefer not to use a mouse.
To make your website keyboard accessible, you need to ensure that all interactive elements on your website, including links, buttons, and form fields, can be accessed and activated using just the keyboard. You can do this by using semantic HTML markup and adding appropriate ARIA attributes to your HTML elements.
- Use Descriptive Alt Text for Images
Images are an important part of any website, but they can be a barrier for people with visual impairments who use screen readers to navigate the web. To make your website more accessible, you should use descriptive alt text for all images on your website.
Alt text is a short description of an image that is read aloud by a screen reader. Descriptive alt text should provide a clear and concise description of the image, including any important details or context that the image conveys. For example, if you have an image of a red apple, your alt text might be “A red apple on a wooden table.”
- Provide Captions and Transcripts for Videos
Videos are becoming an increasingly popular way to communicate information online, but they can be a barrier for people with hearing impairments who may not be able to hear the audio. To make your website more accessible, you should provide captions and transcripts for all videos on your website.
Captions are a text-based representation of the audio in a video, and they can be turned on or off by the viewer. Transcripts are a written version of the video’s audio, which can be helpful for people who prefer to read information rather than watch a video. By providing captions and transcripts, you can make your videos accessible to people with hearing impairments, as well as people who may be in a noisy environment and unable to hear the audio.
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