Designing websites that everyone can use
There are many reasons people might struggle to access your website. These can include sight, hearing, movement or learning disabilities. This issue is too often neglected by small business owners. It is something that should be more highly valued.
Imagine someone who isn’t able to see and has to use a screen reader. Imagine someone who can’t use a mouse and has to use the keyboard to navigate your website. Imagine someone with color blindness trying to read the words you have on your website. Designing a website that is useful to all of these people should be a priority.
What is WCAG?
WCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It is the industry standard for how to make websites accessible. This is not limited to just text on a page. Rather, it encompasses everything from text to media and everything in between.
It is not crucial to understand the guidlines, although it is beneficial to know why you may need a developer familiar with WCAG.
Why accessibility matters
These points must be clearly defined.
- Legal risk: In the UK, the Equality Act sets specific requirements for businesses to avoid being sued.
- Loss of opportunity: Over 20% of the population in the UK has a disability. By not addressing accessibility, you could be losing over 20% of your potential clientele.
- Better experience for everyone — the end result of making designs more accessible is more clear and easy to use for each visitor (even those without accessibility needs)
Practical things that make a site accessible
Habits developed during the design and development process contribute greatly to the level of accessibility a site offers:
- Alt text — brief but clear written descriptions of images that find their way into a site to help screen readers describe the images to those who cannot see them
- Colour contrast — ensuring that the background and foreground of text, page elements, and content are clear and legible for those with impaired vision
- Keyboard navigation — making it possible and fully functional to use and navigate the site with only a keyboard, without a mouse
- Clear headings — creating and including headings with a clear and logical hierarchy so that for those with accessibility needs and for screen readers, the information hierarchy and structure of a page is clear
How Sunneo builds with accessibility in mind
Though it is possible to retrofit accessibility on a completed site, it is much more effective to consider it at the outset. We make accessibility a core tenet of our design and development process, knowing that considering it as an add-on after the fact is a suboptimal approach.
Because of this, the site we create uses proper alt text for every image, considers color contrast, and is designed to be navigated and used solely with the keyboard, as part of our standard process.
Accessibility is not a one-off task
Thinking about accessibility once is not enough.
When you upload new content to your site, it needs the same level of effort to address accessibility concerns as all other content. When you or your team modify content on the site, we’d recommend accessibility.
Simple habits, like always adding a description to images, or adding enough contrast to all of the content you see on a page, help to maintain the accessibility of your site.
A more welcoming website, full stop
Accessibility should be viewed as a dimension of good design. A website that meets good design criteria (i.e. is clear, and has a good structure) is a better experience for everyone who visits the website, including people with or without disabilities.
We take an accessible design approach to our work because we view it as good design. We apply good design principles at the first opportunity in each individual case.
If you have questions or would like a quotation, contact us. We would be happy to assist you.