Youbee Media's marketing consultancy has recently been introduced to KreativeInc Agency via The Northern Affinity. After a 121 and Youbee Emma attending a webinar hosted by Caren and Callum, we asked our friends at KreativeInc Agency to feature on our website with a guest blog. As this is their area of expertise, the blog provides information to businesses on 'The What, The Why, The Wow & The How' of Website Accessibility. We also felt that this approach worked well with Youbee Media's approach to learning, and how our team supports businesses with marketing workshops.
Website Accessibility is becoming increasingly important nowadays. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation with more online transactions than ever before. Now is the time to make your website user-friendly for all your potential customers, including those with different access needs through disability or impairment.
UK Government regulations specify that public sector organisations have a legal duty to ensure their websites meet accessibility requirements or face fines for non-compliance. It is only a matter of time until this will apply to the private sector too.
In this post, you will learn what website accessibility is, why it is essential, with some eye-opening facts, and how you can fix your website if it is not accessible.
1. Website Accessibility – The What
Website Accessibility means that a website's design and code is optimised to make the site user-friendly for all users.
70% of UK websites currently exclude 20% of the population, such as people with sensory or physical impairments. These sites are not compatible with different access needs and assistive technology requirements.
A selection of people with different access needs:
- Blind and visually impaired – using screen readers.
- Cognitively impaired, such as autistic, dyslexic, dyspraxic, ADHD, etc. – struggling to process information and getting overwhelmed.
- Deaf and hard-of-hearing – cannot take in video content without captions and cannot use telephones as a contact option.
- Physically impaired – cannot use mouse or trackpad and navigate a website with the keyboard.
- An ageing population – may have all the difficulties listed above.
By anticipating and accommodating the needs of these audiences in the design process of a website, it becomes compliant with accessibility regulations and compatible with assistive technology.
2. Website Accessibility – The Why & The Wow
Would it be worth your while to have an accessible website for your business?
Here are some 'wow' facts:
- Only 30% of UK websites are currently tapping into a market with an online spending power of £24.8bn a year.
- More than one in five people living in the UK have different access needs – that's one in five of your potential customers!
- In 2019, UK businesses lost £17.1bn in potential revenue as visitors clicked away from their user-unfriendly websites.
- 71% of website users leaving a site they cannot use will never return.
- The demand for online purchasing and services increased by 48% in 2020 due to the pandemic.
- Making their digital platforms accessible has increased Tesco’s sales by 350% in a year and Legal & General’s organic search traffic (SEO) by 50%.
- According to the Equality Act 2010, excluding disabled visitors from using a website is disability discrimination and therefore illegal.
Sources:
http://www.clickawaypound.com/downloads/cap19final0502.pdf
3. Website Accessibility – The How
Here are some easy steps of how you can evaluate if your website is currently accessible or not.
The Wave Evaluation Tool
The free Wave web accessibility evaluation tool scans your website for coding and contrast errors by using assistive technology.
You should be concerned about any errors and contrast errors showing up in your scan results.
Contact your web developer or us and ask for a closer look at the errors with a view of getting a quote to fix them.
Link to Wave Evaluation Tool: https://wave.webaim.org.
Keyboard Navigation
Can you use the 'tab' key to get around your site, and can you see where you are at all times? This is important for people who cannot use a mouse or trackpad and are reliant on navigating the website through the tab key on their keyboard.
Alt Text for Images
Do your images have alternative text descriptions, Alt-text? Alt-text lists the different items that construct the whole image so that screen readers can convey this information to a blind or sight-impaired user.
Multi-media Text Alternatives
Do your videos have captions and your podcasts text alternatives? People who are deaf or hard of hearing will not be able to consume a video without captions or podcasts without text transcripts. Blind people will not be able to perceive the information in a video without a text transcript for their screen readers.
Colour Contrast Ratio
Is your Colour Contrast Ratio good? Can you easily read all the text on each background? Even in bad lighting conditions?
This is important for all users, but particularly for low vision and colour blindness.
Clear Text and Instructions
Are your text and instructions clear? This applies to links and contact forms in particular. People with cognitive conditions such as autism require clear, unambiguous language to understand the information and navigation functionalities of a website.
Alternative Contact Options
Do you have alternative contact options, I.e., email, contact form, telephone, WhatsApp, video call facilities? Make sure that anybody can contact you, regardless of any impairments or limitations.
Logical Header Structure
Are the header structure & layout logical for screen readers and other assistive technology? Your code must be compatible with the navigation requirements of assistive technology. An illogical header structure and layout will make a screen reader, for example, jump between unrelated text sections. The information on the site will no longer make sense to the user.
Does your site have an uncluttered layout and text structure for easy reading? People with autism and ADHD can easily get overwhelmed and distracted by websites that are too busy, cluttered and untidy.
4. Website Accessibility – The Fixes
The following options can help you with fixing the accessibility issues on your website:
- Please check out our blog for some DIY solutions to your accessibility problems.
Link to our blog: https://kreativeincagency.co.uk/blog-valuable-web-accessibility-resources.
- Alternatively, attend one of our free monthly webinars, 'Introduction to Web Accessibility', for more information on the topic and live demonstrations on the above testing points
Link to book a place on our next webinar: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/kreativeinc-agency-34088668949.
- You can also contact us to run a free homepage audit on your website and get a quote for web accessibility fixes.
Link to our website: https://kreativeincagency.co.uk.
