Accessibility: Good Practice In Web Design

By Robert Stephenson

Making web sites more accessible for people with disabilities, or e-accessibility as it has become known, is one of the internet’s burning issues of the moment. Let’s face it, there are some supposedly professionally designed web sites out there on the web that are so un-user friendly for visually impaired users that it makes you wonder if their inadequacy hasn’t been the result of special effort.

It doesn’t have to be like that, however, as there are some simple rules that Web Designers can follow to make their web sites so much more accessible. Here are just a few:

1. Use Accessibility Keys

I mean, really, what is the point of going to all the trouble of incorporating really useful accessibility elements into the design of your web site, if the people who visit it have no idea that they’re there. An Accessibility Key or Accessibility Page can be incorporated from a prominently placed link on the home page. It’s where you can provide information about the accessibility of the website, what users can do and also what they can’t. Acknowledging known accessibility barriers demonstrates awareness of accessibility issues, and makes a positive statement about your organisation’s commitment to the issue.

2. Use Alt Text or Alt Tags

How do people with visual impairments use the internet? They use a special piece of software called a screen reader that reads aloud what it sees on the screen. Whilst sighted users can see physical images on the web page, users who are vision impaired rely on alternative text or tags being read by a screen reader so that they can understand what the image is. Alt text or alt tags should be used for all types of images, such as pictures, graphics, gifs, form buttons and graphical links, and is fundamental to accessibility. Their absence is probably the biggest barrier for visually impaired users on the internet.

3. Use Cascading Style Sheets

Cascading style sheets are used to standardize how a website looks from page to page. It makes the appearance and basic layout of the all the pages look the same, and separates the content of the page from the code that makes its look how it does. This is important, because web pages where the layout and colour scheme code is all mixed up with the content can confuse screen readers and make the pages difficult to navigate. Another advantage of cascading style sheets is that they facilitate little scripts of code that allow a user to override or customise the style of the web site and change colour schemes and font sizes to make the site easier to read.

4. Use Site Maps, Page Titles, and Headings

Using screen readers, text magnifiers, or Braille displays is sometimes a slow process for visually impaired people. The problem is that they can’t immediately see the whole layout or organisation of a web page. A user might not know, for example, that the link they need is at the bottom of the page and go there straight away. Instead, they have to slowly read the whole page from top to bottom until they find what they need. Use of site maps, page titles, headings and sub headings, however, considerably speeds up this process. It gives the user a quick way to scan content, rather than painstakingly read every line.

5. Use Access Keys

Some people have difficulty in using a mouse because of a physical disability or perhaps can’t track the on-screen cursor in the way that you or I can because of a cognitive disorder. For such people, the ability to navigate a website using their keyboard is really important. One of the best ways of doing this is by use of access keys. Access keys usually work by allocating particular keyboard keys to access specific parts of the web site. For example pressing Alt 1 may bring you to the home page, Alt 2 to the site map, and so on and so on. Some countries have their own standards for access keys. I can’t list all the standards for all countries. You’ll just have to look that up yourself.

6. Use Warnings

When a web site opens a link on a new page without letting the user know, it can confuse a screen reader and induce explicitly rude language from the person trying to use the site. It’s just really irritating when new pages are opening left right and centre without the user knowing. A little thoughtfulness and consideration on behalf of the web designer by utilising simple warnings would make navigation so much easier, and quicker.