Your website looks awesome, all the images appear when you scroll down, the intro video from the Director is there for everyone to view. But is it viewable to everyone?
Put yourself in the shoes of someone with a visual impairment, they can still buy your products or services but they want to view your website to make sure you’re the right fit for them. But they can’t see the images clearly, there’s too much text and the colours clash, so they just click off the page. If you want your services and products to be accessible to everyone you need to make your website accessible to everyone too.
Accessibility isn’t just down to using alternative text on images – although this is a start – there is a lot more that needs look at. Accessibility doesn’t just mean people with a visual impairment, it could be someone who can’t interpret your industries jargon, someone who has limited motor skills or someone who cannot hear very well.
Yes, you need to make sure your website looks cool and sells your business but it can’t just be all aesthetics (the way it looks). There are some simple ways in which you can make your website more accessible to a wider range of people.
Images on your website
Let’s start by looking at images, Alternative text (ALT text) is a simple change to make this is when you upload images to your website you add a line of text (no longer than 140 characters really) as a description of the image. The other way you can help people view images is to add captions to images, this can be slightly more descriptive than the ALT text option. The only exception to this would be an image which is being used for purely decorative reasons, this wouldn’t necessarily need any ALT Text or caption. If the image you are showing on your website is a graph or chart and it is quite small you should think about adding a description of this within the body text.
Use of colour
With colours, you need to make sure there is a good contrast between layered colours or colours next to each other. Some WordPress templates have a prompt when changing colours of text that it may not be visible. If you are showing a table or chart on your website, it is also helpful to have a key of the colours to enable people with some visual impairments still read the information on the chart.
Text and fonts
Text is also really important. If your website is text heavy (and it needs to be) then use headings, sub headings and paragraph breaks to make it easier for people to read. This also helps people using screen readers. Don’t be scared of using the white space on a website. Your website should be selling your business not be a dissertation on your company, so try to use:
- short sentences
- bulleted lists
- heading
- paragraphs
Ideally you don’t want to use fonts any smaller than 16px, unless your website is set up so a user can click to enlarge the font size. Also, think about the font choice. Not only do you need to make sure it looks good, but some fonts are a lot more readable than others.
What about videos?
There are many ways you can make a video more accessible to viewers, such as including captions on the video, or a transcript below the video or available somewhere to download. You could also use audio description, too describe what is being shown in the video, without interfering with the dialogue. how the video is shot as well can help with accessibility – making sure the lighting is good and there is no background noise.
This isn’t it…
This is by no means a definitive list of things your website needs to do, but it is as start. So, if you want to make sure you are making your business inclusive and you can offer your services to everyone then make sure your website is accessible. After all your website is your online shop front which is open 24/7, which I spoke about in my previous blog.
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If you’d like to find out how I can help make your website more accessible or for me to give you some pointers please get in touch and we can arrange a call.
LB 🐝