Creating Accessible Content
There are many approaches to accessibility, a good place to start is with the key principles that content should be:
Easy to Perceive
Easy to Use
Compatible with All Technology
Usable for Everyone
Equal access to content for everyone is vital. Building accessible content ensures you’re doing your part to make the web as inclusive as possible for people and are removing barriers for them.
Ensuring all site visitors can fully access your website is vital to providing accessible services and content, inlcuding those with:
Visual impairments
Hearing loss
Mobility impairments
Cognitive disabilities
However, accessibility doesn’t only help those with disabilities. It also makes content more accessible to people who:
Have slow network connections
Use mobile devices, smart watches or TVs, and other technologies
Easy to Perceive
People with disabilities often use assistive technology or browser functions to alter or access website content.
Make it easy for site visitors to see and hear content:
Provide On-Page Zoom Functionality
Ensures people with vision impairments are able to access information on your website by zooming in on the text
Use Alternative Text on Images & Field Labels on Forms
Ensures people with vision impairments are able to access information on your website by accessing text and images using a screen reader
Include Captions for Videos
Ensure Content Doesn’t Rely on Characteristics to Communicate Meaning
Avoiding the use of shape, color, or size to communicate information makes it easier for people with visual and cognitive disabilities as well as people who are color blind to use your site.
Easy to Use
Information is easily accessibly using a variety of tools:
Create Intuitive Navigation Making it Easy to Find Content
An intuitive navigation helps everyone using your website, including people with disabilities. An easy to use and logical navigation layout makes it easy for users using assistive technology to quickly find the information they need and helps those with cognitive disabilities better navigate your site
Ensure Pages Can be Accessed Without a Mouse
Include Enhanced Print Functionality
The ability to print information from your website is vital for people who find it easier to read information offline.
Why Print Optimization?
Simply printing off a webpage typically isn’t the best solution, so providing a shortcut that restyles content so it is optimized for printing can be very helpful.
Print optimization allows people to print the core content of a page and removes the navigation menus, sidebars, and colorful headers, footers and other extra page information that can use lots of ink.
Another key factor of print optimization is including the full URLs next to linked content so the reader can access the link online.
Compatible With All Technology
Works with current and future assistive technology such as:
Screen readers
Text readers
Head pointers
Single switch entry devices
Screen magnification software
Speech input software
Motion/eye tracking
Other technologies
Compliance
Accessibility isn’t only the right thing to do, in most situations, it’s also a requirement that if not met, could result in a lawsuit. Keep reading for a breakdown what compliance means and how to meet it.
ADA
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the most commonly cited reason for accessibility lawsuits.
However, ADA does not give any specific guidance on how to make websites accessible, only that they need to be accessible to everyone.
Section 508
Section 508 requires websites of Federal agencies and agencies receiving federal funding to align with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
WCAG 2.0
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created WCAG 2.0 to standardize web accessibility practices internationally and make websites accessible for everyone include people with disabilities using a variety of assistive technologies.
WCAG 2.0 is considered the industry standard in accessibility and making a good faith effort to meet these guidelines in most cases should help you avoid a lawsuit.
Learn More
There is a lot that goes into to making your site accessible, and this is only the start. To find out more about accessibility sign up for our free guide The STAR Standard.
The Bottom Line
Create content for people, not for law books. WCAG 2.0 has the nuanced information on how to create an accessible site, but the best way to start is by creating people-centered content.
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