Introduction

Have you wondered if there’s a way more people can use your website? You can even make it rank higher in search engines. You can also make it easier for disabled and elderly people to interact with. This is where web accessibility comes in. So, what is it?

What is web accessibility?

It means designing websites so everyone can use them, even people with disabilities. You must ensure the font size is readable and use nice colors. You must also add captions so blind people can use a screen reader to hear it.

Importance of web accessibility

• It makes your website rank higher on search engines.

• It makes your website accessible to more audiences. These include blind people who rely on screen readers.

• It makes your website easier to use on mobile devices.

• It makes more people interact with your website.

• It makes your website visually appealing thanks to more readable fonts and themes.

Principles of Web Accessibility

According to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). There are four principles to follow to ensure your website is accessible.

1. Perceivable: This means presenting information in a way accessible to many. This includes adding alternative text for screen readers and captions for multimedia.

2. Operable: The ability to navigate a website using a mouse, keyboard, etc.

3. Understandable: Use proper website description, clear font, and color.

4. Robust: The website should be accessible to technologies such as screen readers.

How to improve web accessibility

There are things a web developer can do to increase the web accessibility of a website.

1. Add alt text to images.

<img src="dog.png" alt="a dog on the rooftop" width="600" height="700">

1. Insert labels for form fields.

<form action="">
  <input type="radio" id="cat" name="animals" value="Cat">
  <label for="cat">Cat</label><br>
  <input type="radio" id="dog" name="animals" value="Dog">
  <label for="dog">Dog</label><br>
</form>

1. Add HTML heading structure on your website.

<h1>Heading One</h1>
<h2>Heading Two</h2>
<h3>Heading Three</h3>
<h4>Heading Four</h4>
<h5>Heading Five</h5>
<h6>Heading Six</h6>

1. Make sure people can navigate your website using a keyboard.

2. Add description for link texts.

3. Add an ARIA label where necessary.

4. Only use a table to enter tabular information.

5. Make your website responsive. This ensures that the content adjusts with different screen sizes. Use good fonts and appropriate colors.

Tools to Check web accessibility

There are tools to check the accessibility score of websites.

1. Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE): This a tool by WebAIM.org.

   

2. Accessibility Engine(AXE): It has a Chrome extension to check the accessibility score.

Go to Web Accessibility Tools to view the complete list.

Conclusion

As you can see, web accessibility makes more people use a website. This also leads to increased revenue for the website owners.

To read more, go to the W3C page.