A simple guide to make your website content more accessible and inclusive

28th Feb 2023

The online world can be a wonderful place, breaking down barriers that exist in the physical and enabling us to communicate with each other far and wide.

More so now than ever is it pertinent to make sure our website content is accessible and inclusive to the diverse range of visitors we will hopefully receive.

This is a simple guide, so we are keeping it short and sweet here but at the end of this post are links to previous, more in-depth articles we have written on the subject.

Implement these steps and you can make a big difference to your website users' experience:

• Add ‘Alt text’ to your images – Descriptions of images for visitors who cannot see them.
• Don’t use images to convey text information (such as a picture of a poster containing event information or contact details). If you do put informative text inside an image, add this as actual text too.
• Use accessible, contrasting colours for backgrounds and foregrounds, especially if the foreground colour is to be used for text. You can find useful colour contrast checkers online.
• Provide transcripts alongside video or audio content.
• Use headings to create content structure and never for decoration. Headings used appropriately (i.e. heading 1 first, followed by heading 2s and so on) are useful for non-visual users to skip through your content quickly to find what they need.
• Put link text in context. For example, instead of creating the link using just the word ‘here’, add the link to more descriptive text such as ‘our calendar of events here’.
• Use clear language that gets to the point. Don't force a website visitor to go through other marketing or misleading information before getting to what they really need.
• For users with poor wifi speeds or relying on their mobile plan for their online use, keep everything as efficient and streamlined as possible
  • Reduce the size of photographs before publishing them to your website. Photographs shouldn’t be uploaded directly from the camera unless you have a system that automatically re-sizes and optimises them to a suitable size.
  • If you’re using WordPress for your website, remove idle plugins. Even plugins which aren’t in use will load with the rest of the website, like a digital rubbish bag weighing you down.
  • Video is the most data-hungry of all online content. Is a video necessary when text would quickly and easily get the message across?
  • If using video, turn off auto-play for mobile visitors. Let them choose.

This has just been a really quick guide but to delve deeper, do check out:

Reducing digital exclusion in online content creation

How to make your social media content more inclusive