You have spent hours, days, or even weeks planning and executing your website design. It was all worth it… right? Well, maybe not.
As much as we tend to focus on all the technicalities of creating a website like bandwidth and hosting space, a vital aspect is often overlooked: making your website more accessible, especially for people with disabilities.
The word "disability" covers a lot of ground.
There are, after all, a variety of different kinds of disabilities — everything from simple vision problems to serious and complex conditions that require constant care and mobility aids.
For those who are disabled, it can be difficult and frustrating to get through each day when there are obstacles in the way such as poorly designed websites.
So, if you want to make your site more accessible for people with disabilities, read on to discover some simple ways you can do this.
In this blog post, Butter is here to help you make your website more accessible.
Did you know that 15% of the global population has some form of disability?
That statistic shows that you have a high chance of having a person with a visual impairment visiting your website. If you’re wondering why this is important to you, it’s because alt text (alternative text) allows better accessibility for someone who can’t see your images.
When we’re designing a website, it can be easy to forget that different audiences might be visiting.
The focus tends to be on brand identity and aesthetics, rather than making sure the design works well for everyone. In short, many sites are not as inclusive as they could be.
A lot of this has to do with coding errors and design flaws. Motion design is one example of where designers can improve the user experience for a wider audience by using something called reduced motion.
A lack of reduced motion can make a website more difficult to navigate by those who suffer from motion sickness or vestibular disorders. More on our detailed post on motion in design here.
There are many things you can do to make your website easier to use and navigate and take the customer experience above and beyond their expectations.
One common issue we see on websites is colour contrast. It's hardwired into our brains that black text on a white background is easier to read. People with visual disabilities could find it very challenging to read without a clear colour contrast.
A quick guide is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). It sets out accessibility guidelines for all websites that apply to both content and design. Website designers need to ensure that the colour contrast of their websites passes this WCAG. This way all users will be able to see the website content correctly.
One of the very first things we help our clients do when we design websites is to start with developing accessibility in their web designs.
The good thing with this is you have to know what elements to focus on and then create those elements for your website to be more accessible.
It can seem intimidating at first, but after a while, you get into a routine of deciding which elements you will use and applying them as you see fit.
Good visual typography emphasizes typographic elements so viewers, especially those with some vision impairment or colour-blindness, can distinguish between headings, links and buttons easily.
Okay, so your site design is accessible to people with disabilities.
But what about the content?
The typeface style plays a crucial role in the website’s overall user experience. Whether it is for all users or only people with disabilities, your website content should be easily legible.
A good web design should be fun for the eyes, but at the same time easy to read and understand.
Autoplay videos and audio are everywhere on the web. It might be a challenge to get your audience’s attention when so many other websites are bombarding them with the same thing.
But there is one big reason why you should disable autoplaying video and audio on your site: accessibility.
Not all of your users can view videos and audio. Some may not be in a position where they're able to listen to sound at all. We have folks in hospitals, travelling on planes, or working environments that cannot play sounds.
in addition to that, people with cognitive disabilities could find them distracting or confusing. They could also trigger nausea or seizures for people.
When you add autoplay video or audio on your site, this can prevent a chunk of your visitors from accessing one part or another of your website.
When you consider the overall effect, it’s plain to see that making your web development more accessible for all people will ultimately increase your site usability and make it easier for you to attract, engage, and retain visitors.
This can go a long way in helping you achieve your business goals and – because a site is only as good as its traffic – increase your sales profits in the process.
If you need help with the website design Hong Kong discussed here, get in touch with our Butter experts to get this done for you.
Tiffany is a Biochemistry graduate from CUHK. After graduation, she worked as a Digital & Analytics intern at L'Oréal APAC for more than a year before joining Butter as part of the Graduate Programme. Tiffany now works closely with the Strategy and Business Development Team to meet output expectations and contributes to managing client projects within Butter.
