Accessible Designs
User Friendly
- Designing an accessible website is part of our overall strategy for delivering a user friendly product.
- Accessible websites keep bounce rates low, increase lead generation, and lead to better user experiences.
- Text is easy to read, links are obvious, headings are clear, and users can access and navigate the website.
Four Principles of Accessibility
The web content accessibility guidelines WCAG (“WUH-cag”) include a series of guidelines organized by four principles. The success criteria for these guidelines describe how to meet or exceed these standards.
#1. Perceivable
Users know what information is on the website and can access it. Meeting a minimum contrast ratio between text and background elements is one of the success criteria.
#2. Operable
Users can operate the website navigation and interface. Navigating by only keyboard input is one of the success criteria.
#3. Understandable
Users understand the website’s interface. Providing visible labels for form fields is one of the success criteria.
#4 Robust
The website works with user agents, such as browsers and assistive technologies. Well written HTML is one of the success criteria.
Other Considerations
Our team conducts accessibility reviews and testing to guarantee a smooth website launch. Maintaining that level of accessibility after launch is possible with our robust templates and the training of client staff.
Edits & Changes
After launch, your team will take over the publishing of different types of content, press releases for example. Keeping a website accessible is an ongoing project that requires constant work from both teams. For example, if your team pastes links as URLS, https://example.website…, the website will automatically style the link in an accessible way, so users can easily identify it as a link. However, the link text itself is not as accessible as link text that clearly states the destination and function of the link, a WCAG accessibility requirement.
Staff Training
Our agency provides training after launch and access to our free knowledgebase. These tools help organizations maintain an accessible website after launch. It is important that anyone posting content on your website learn a few basic requirements of writing and posting accessible content. Check out are knowledgebase to learn about making headings, links, and images more accessible to users.
Accessibility Reviews
Our agency performs a major accessibility review of the website before launch. This review includes looking at the website through several different accessibility lenses. Our team will use automated tools to check for errors in contrast, link text, and html tags. We will perform a variety of responsive device and browser tests to ensure the website works with user’s preferred device. We conduct screen reader tests on all pages and samples of each post type. Screen reader testing allows us to check that users can navigate the website with assistive technologies in a predictable way.