Digital accessibility: delivering an inclusive user experience

James Smith

Head of SEO - PLMR Genesis

Accessibility is often misunderstood as a mere box ticking activity. However, delivering an inclusive online experience that benefits everyone is important not just a technical perspective but also from a design and development point of view. By incorporating accessibility best practices from the start, you can ensure equal access for all users especially those with a disability so that they can navigate and interact with your site as intended.

This approach is more than just about legal compliance, it is about understanding the unique needs of different sectors. For example, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), include accessible elements such as enhanced screen reader compatibility and keyboard navigation, to help visually impaired users easily access online resources and donation pages.

For schools, their website needs to be as inclusive as the classroom. The Ofsted website is strong example of inclusivity where users can change colours, adjust contrast levels and font size. As well as navigate the website using just a keyboard. By implementing accessible elements like this you can build trust and deliver more meaningful digital experiences tailored to your audience.

 

What is Digital Accessibility?

Digital accessibility ensures a website is easy to use for everyone, including people with disabilities. This means considering the needs of users with:

  • Visual impairments such as blindness or colour blindness (include screen readers and high contrast ratios to help users navigate and view content effectively)
  • Hearing loss or deafness (Add captions and transcripts to videos to make them accessible and easy to understand)
  • Dyslexia or ADHD (utilise a clear, consistent navigation and non-technical language to enhance readability and reduce confusion)
  • Physical limitations such as difficulty using a mouse or keyboard (ensure full keyboard functionality for navigation and interaction)

Even for people without disabilities, ensuring that your website is fully accessible can make life easier. For example, a website that includes keyboard navigation is helpful if using a mouse is impractical.

 

Why Digital Accessibility matters?

According to WebAIM, only 4% of the web is considered accessible, with 16% of the world’s global population having a significant disability. Therefore, a large proportion of users require some form of adaptive technology for them to access content.

Ensuring an accessible site is not just the right thing to do, but it will also soon become a mandatory requirement for many businesses and organisations with regulations like the European Accessibility Act (EAA), requiring businesses to meet accessibility standards by June 2025 for those trading within the EU.

Here are three ways to make your website more accessible

  1. Prioritise an inclusive design – this includes:
    • Clear navigation menus: Organise menus with clear labels (donate/contact us) to help users find what they need quickly.
    • Readable text: Use fonts that are easy to read and with sufficient contrast ratio (brightness).
    • Accessible media: Provide subtitles and descriptive transcripts on videos for users with hearing impairments.
  2. Add easy-to-use features – add tools and enhancements to improve functionality, such as:
    • Keyboard shortcuts for easy navigation which aids people with mobility issues unable to use a mouse e.g. pressing tab to navigate through links and buttons.
    • Image descriptions (ALT text) to help accurately describe images for those using a screen reader.
    • High contrast text which use colour combinations that are easy to read e.g. black text on a white background.
  3. Regular testing: Keep testing your site to ensure it stays user-friendly and gather user feedback from those that require assistive technologies (like screen readers) and optimise accordingly.

 

Useful tools

Here are some helpful tools for when it comes to testing accessibility to better enhance user experiences on your site:

  1. Lighthouse: An open-source, automated tool used for improving the overall quality of web pages. It allows users to audit a web page in term of performance, accessibility, SEO and best practices offering suggestions to improve website quality.
  2. WAVE: A suite of evaluation tools to help make your web content more accessible to individuals with disabilities. WAVE tools can be used to detect accessibility issues by analysing the structure and content of web pages.
  3. Accessibility Toolkit: A Chrome extension that helps to find and fix accessibility issues across both websites and apps.
  4. The Markup Validator: A free tool by W3C to help check the validity of web documents by identifying issues in the site code to ensure web pages follow the latest web standards and are compatible across multiple browsers.

 

Conclusion

Delivering an all-inclusive digital experience that benefits all users helps to expand your audience and elevate the user journey to help drive business critical actions.

Looking to enhance your website’s accessibility? Contact our team for expert digital advice.

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