Formal requirements and how to get started
Website accessibility for keyboard users, screen readers, etc. must comply with the WCAG 2.1 standard, according to the Danish Act on the Accessibility of Public and Public Law Bodies’ Websites and Mobile Applications, as it is aptly named.
Start by avoiding ‘click here’ links
Youtube: Create meaningful links
In other words, your website must be accessible to people with disabilities. In addition to being inclusive and the right thing to do, it’s also good for SEO. Search engines fundamentally want to present you with websites that you can actually use. So if your site isn’t accessible to everyone, it risks being ranked lower in search results.
You can take a look at the danish official standard, or just start with w3.org’s excellent tips to get started designing, writing and developing for web accessibility
Continually test for web accessibility
At webaim.org and in Chrome’s built-in Lighthouse, you can test websites for common web accessibility issues and get help to fix them. It’s by far the easiest way to find and fix bugs during the development process. Some technical aspects need to be fixed in HTML, such as a missing label on the search box, but keeping a close eye on the content itself, such as header structure, captions and the like, will save you headaches in the long run.
Synthetic tests are just the start
But remember – a flawless synthetic test is only a reasonable starting point and not the same as an ideal visitor experience. A synthetic test checks for captions but not for meaning, so I highly recommend a manual review. With practice, accessibility awareness can become as natural a part of web content creation as spell checking.
Recommended resources
The LinkedIn courses Accessibility for Web Design and WordPress: Accessibility provide a great introduction to web accessibility in general and guidance for WordPress specifically.
What’s your experience?
Is web accessibility something you spend time and energy on, and if so, what do you find to be the most difficult challenges? You are welcome to leave a comment below.
