Your website is eye-catching, isn’t it? Do the visually-challenged users find your website useful? Your website is compatible on all browsers and screen sizes but do the physically-handicapped people find convenient to operate? It really appears like being prejudice, when you pay least attention to the disable people while designing websites. Though you might be considerate but if it doesn’t reflect in your work then certainly you may look pitiless or unfair to these society members.
Gone are the days when websites just looked visually-appealing, today websites are optimized to look perfect on myriads of devices as well as functionality is given utmost attention. However it seems like digital professionals assume that websites are only for physically perfect people. Either they ignore the disabled people or give an afterthought which actually can turn out to be a major loss for businesses. Businesses should understand that people with disabilities are the largest minority thus if you don’t consider them then you are casting aside a substantial market. Making website fully accessible is not an uphill struggle, you just need to incorporate few features to make it helpful for the disable people.
Apart from just adding alt tags to the images, there are various other ways to make your website disable-friendly:
Designing for visually-disable people:
It is important to understand that users with disability would view or operate website differently than normal people. However when you deal with visually-challenged people, your approach should be totally different.
- Since the users cannot view the site, it is advisable to include applications like Microsoft Narrator which will read the site content and information loudly
- People with color blindness, would find it difficult to differentiate between colors shades of green, blue and red
- The best color combination used for color-blind people would be black text on white background or vice versa. You can embrace color contrast to relieve the strain on their eyes
- You can also increase the font to make the content more readable. Avoid flashy effects as it could affect the eyes
- Use punctuation marks effectively, so that the screen reader understands when to pause or what to highlight
Designing for hearing-impaired users:
If you make your website compatible for the hearing-impaired people then you are making it compatible for everybody.
- The main requirement for the website to be user-friendly is to keep the web content simple, clear and to the point. Even the normal audience prefers websites that have clear and useful content
- Grammar and spellings should be perfect, so that they don’t get confused
- It is better to avoid sound effect in such websites as it is ineffectual and simply will increase the loading time. Whatever audio or video content is integrated in your website, add text version to it, so that the hearing-disabled people find it convenient to understand
- It’s fun to watch videos, even the deaf audience can enjoy videos, if you add video caption to it
- If you feel there is too much of text, then you can replace some content like headings, menu or titles with icons which are easy to interpret. Example for homepage you can use home icon or for search you can use the typical magnifying glass
Common features for a disable-friendly website:
There are some common features which you can incorporate to make your website disable-friendly:
- Whether the audience is visually-impaired or deaf, it is wise to avoid features that instantly shift focus from the main content. Avoid using pop-ups, flashing text or animations. The screen-reader will get confused which text to read. This is the main distraction and people easily lose their focus from the main content
- Make the links more descriptive, rather than just naming it as ‘Click here’, this will make it more understandable
- Make sure that you highlight important content on your website. You can make the text bold, change font color, make it italic or underline the sentence
- In case of abbreviations put full stop after each letter, so that the screen reader can interpret it perfectly to the visually-impaired people
- If the website contains too much of information then it is better to break it down in paragraphs and bullet points. Use active tone of voice. This will make the content more clear and readable
- Avoid too much of scroll and navigation. Make the buttons easily clickable, especially on mobile phones. Physically-challenged users will find it more helpful as it may not cause strain to them
- You need to understand that disable people are also part of the society, even they have the rights to take advantage of business websites. In fact online shopping is more helpful for disable people, they might find it difficult to travel to the store and shop. Most of the stores are not disabled-friendly, therefore by making your site disable-friendly, you can increase traffic and generate more sales. It is win-win situation.
Increasing accessibility of your website is not at all a difficult task, in fact it is profit-making. Make it part of your designing process and see how much impact it would build on the business.
