Make your website accessible

Make your website accessible

There are lots of disabilities out there, but accessing your website should not pose an obstacle to any user. We, as web developers, should do all we can to make sure we can make our site as accessible as possible.

Do you know what problems disabled users are faced with when accessing a website?

Common problems faced are:

  • Accessing a page without using your mouse.
  • Screen readers read out unwanted information left on the site.
  • Media on the site without a transcript.
  • Audio on a site, but no alternative for deaf or hard of hearing users.
  • Graphical media with no alternative text.
  • Links with no reference to where they go to.
  • Can’t click on something without a mouse.
  • I just want to read the article not the whole site HTML.
  • I can’t read that text properly.
  • Did something just happen?

These are just some examples of the common problems disabled users face when accessing websites. There are many more. Most of these problems listed are something we, as developers, should be covering as standard best practices for website builds.

How can I change my current website development and make it accessible?

Well, I have the slides below from a recent presentation, which will get you thinking about Website Development Accessibility and get you started with some of the standard procedures we should all be following.

As you can see, this is something that could be incorporated into every web developer’s processes to follow and will help towards making your site accessible.