Braille wine label by adactioWhat does it mean for a website to be accessible? Accessible for whom?
Most of the time, we think of web accessibility as being for the blind. If your website is accessible, that means a blind person using a screen reader can navigate it successfully and access everything that is there.
But there’s a little more to it than that.
First off, web accessibility isn’t just for the blind. It’s for all of us. It’s for anyone whose eyesight isn’t what it used to be. It’s for anybody whose hand-eye coordination isn’t perfect. It’s really for anybody who accesses the web. All users benefit from an accessible site—and you benefit as well, with more visitors having a better experience at your site.
But this begs the question: If accessibility is so great, why is nobody doing it?
Accessible sites: Ugly and Boring?
A lot of people think accessible sites can’t have any images or, well, anything but text, really. This isn’t true at all. For some good examples, browse through the Guild of Accessible Web Designers’ Site of the Month competition. You’ll find some beautifully designed websites that are very accessible. Or, check out JK Rowling’s official website—an all Flash site that breaks almost every stereotype about accessibility.
Different levels of accessibility
There are generally three levels of accessibility: Great, Good, and Poor. Great accessibility can be difficult, and is typically only achieved by accessibility-related organizations. It involves having your site tested in a variety of screen reader programs by people who use the software on a regular basis. You also have to be sure that any software you use — such as ecommerce payment gateways — meets or exceeds standard accessibility guidelines. Great accessibility takes a great deal of time and attention to detail.
Good accessibility is easy. Good accessibility means following the standard accessibility guidelines as corrected by the WCAG Samurai. It means following web standards and doing the little things that make your website easier to use by everyone. Things like:
- Providing descriptive alternate text for important images on your site, and no alternate text for purely decorative images. This will make your site much more pleasant to listen to.
- Designing forms so that clicking the label — the text next to the checkbox (or text box, or whatever) — works just like clicking directly on the box. I don’t know about you, but I find as I get older, the checkboxes get smaller, and my aim gets worse.
- Make text resizable, so that users without 20/20 vision can adjust the font size to a comfortable level.
A site with good accessibility may not be perfect, but it will be miles ahead of most of its competitors.
Poor accessibility is, unfortunately, very common. And it really shouldn’t be—it’s so easy to achieve a good level of accessibility, there’s no excuse for doing less. Now, here I have to admit, we have built some sites in the past that were not particularly accessible. Our only excuse is that we built those sites before we knew about accessibility. That doesn’t lessen our responsibility, though. We are actively working to fix/replace those sites, and when we do, we’ll write about how easy it was.
So what’s in it for you?
Besides the good feeling you get from making your site accessible, there are many tangible benefits. First, you keep yourself out of trouble. U.S. government websites are required to meet Section 508 guidelines for accessibility. And some retailers are learning the hard way that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies online.
That’s the stick, now here’s the carrot: Better accessibility means more visitors. If a user with disabilities can’t navigate your site, they’ll go somewhere else. Likewise, if someone with a mobile device like a cell phone can’t navigate your site, they’ll simply try somewhere else. You can keep those users sticking around by creating an accessible site.
Don’t forget, your most important visitor is blind—Google. When search engines visit your site, the main thing they do is read the text. Their experience is very similar to that of a blind user. By creating a better experience for disabled users, you create a better experience for Google. And when Google likes your site, it tells all its friends.
Are you accessible?
While there are automated tests for checking your site’s accessibility, there’s no substitute for professional review. Contact us if you would like us to review your site and make suggestions for improvement, or if you would just like more information on accessibility.
