5th Jul 2024
Making your website as accessible to as many people as possible is an aim many website owners want to achieve but may feel that implementation is too technical. So here's a breakdown of what website accessibility is, why it is important and steps website owners can take without any web design knowledge or experience.
What is website accessibility?Website accessibility means having a website that can be visited and used by as many people as possible, including disabled people - People who have motor difficulties or vision, cognitive or hearing impairment, who are blind or deaf or have a learning disability for example. In reality it covers a vast range of diverse people and the devices they use.
Just like accessibility of any other service, product or environment it is about creating an inclusive and equitable space where people who have disabilities can access the same or similar information as everyone else.
According to the disability equality organisation Scope, there are 16 million disabled people in the UK. That is almost a quarter of the population. Aside from the ethical considerations, why would we want to potentially exclude a quarter of prospective visitors from our websites?
Website accessibility regulations came into force in 2018 for public bodies and all UK websites are required to make 'reasonable adjustments' to make their websites accessible under the 2010 Equality Act. There is more in-depth information about legal requirements for UK websites at the .Gov website.
This is not an exhaustive list but it describes the main, non-technical actions you can take as a website owner.
Start with your visual branding.
This can happen before your website even exists. Having a visual brand that uses accessible colours will have a knock on effect across all of your marketing materials, not just your website. If you're hiring a brand designer to create this for you then make sure they understand the issues, especially colour contrast. Low contrasting text colours are a very common item that will fail accessibility checks. Simply speaking, if the text doesn't contrast strongly enough against its background then some people will not be able to see or read it. Are My Colours Accessible is a great tool where you can test this or experiment to help you to understand contrast ratios.
Choosing your wording
Keep your language simple and straightforward. Unless your website contains technical information for a very specific audience, there is no need to over complicate it. Write for people first, rather than for search engines.
Take care with your photos and images.
Never use text in images to convey important information (such as a picture of a poster containing event information or contact details). People using text reader software to access your website content cannot 'see' text in images. If you do put informative text inside an image, add this as actual text too.
Always add alternative text to describe the image for people who cannot see the image visually.
Transcripts and descriptions for audio and video is essential.
Videos are great and who doesn't love a podcast? If you are using these types of media remember to provide subtitles, a transcript and/or written description for deaf or hearing impaired people or users who cannot hear the video/audio content. Provide audio descriptions for people who are blind, have a vision impairment or cannot see the video for another reason.
Headings are not decoration
Use headings to separate and structure your content, not to style your page. 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.
Text for links provides useful information
Put link text in context. For example, instead of creating a link to another page using just the word ‘here’, add the link to more descriptive text such as ‘our calendar of events here’. Consider, would the text of the link make sense if it stood alone?
Remember the interactive parts of your website
The complexity of this varies depending on the function or feature and this where you may need a professional web developer's expertise. For example a more complex feature may be your website's forms which need to be properly structured, labelled correctly and consistent. A more simple feature may be a button, which should be large enough to click/tap and far enough away from other interactive elements that very fine and precise movement isn't required to hit it.
PDFs count too
In most circumstances your PDFs also need to meet accessibility standards. There are some exceptions, especially for non-essential documents created before September 2018.
Design for multiple devices
Your website should be equally usable on the small screen of a mobile phone and other size screens, through to a large desktop screen. This is website responsiveness and is built into the design and coding of your site. If you're not sure, check with your web designer that your website is responsive.
The technical details
There are more technical aspects to creating an accessible website and even if you are not developing the website yourself, it is empowering to understand them. Talk this over with your web developer and ask them how they build accessibility into their websites and how they conduct accessibility testing.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - pages about website accessibility
The Web Accessibility Initiative
UK Government guidance on understanding website accessibility requirements
UK Government guidance on doing a basic accessibility check
Are My Colours Accessible? tool
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