Web accessibility a fundamental principle of web design which ensures that people can use and interact with the website’s content regardless of their abilities. It is imperative to put a high value on accessibility on the web when designing and creating websites or apps.
The correct HTML markup is essential for making sure that your website is accessible. For example the use of logical headers can help people who use screen readers understand the layout of your web pages. It is highly recommended to utilize the appropriate link description and to provide sufficient contrast of colors.
WCAG Guidelines
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are web-based standards that ensure application accessibility. These standards are employed by front-end programmers, QA testers, and others in the web team to meet the minimum accessibility standards for web sites. WCAG includes 13 guidelines organized under four fundamental principles: easily understood, understandable, perceivable and robust. These are also referred to in the industry as the POUR. Each guideline has testable success criteria that are used to assess conformance.
Unilever which is an multinational conglomerate with 400 products sold in more than 2 billion homes worldwide has a website that balances web accessibility with aesthetically appealing design. Its site conforms to WCAG guidelines for colour and contrast, keyboard navigation, and heading structure.
A key feature of its site is the use of visual indicators that highlight which part of the web page has keyboard focus. This makes the users able to navigate and read the content of a page without a mouse, in addition to screen readers as well as other text-to-speech applications. This approach is also suggested for any different web-based applications that need solely keyboard navigation.
Semantic HTML
Additionally, it keeps styles and content distinct semantic HTML can make your website simpler for assistive technologies to understand. When a browser reads well-written and semantic HTML, the information it presents is passed onto assistive technologies such as screen readers, which interpret it as well as converted into formats people require.
Also, the proper use of landmarks -a collection of HTML tags that identify the areas on your site – can help ensure that certain areas can be accessed via keyboard to text-to speech and screen reader user. Also, be sure to add short description of the images (also called alt attributes) in case you are unable to read or interpret images.
Keyboard Friendly Web Interfaces
Certain types of users surf through the web with a keyboard rather than the mouse. They can be expert “power” keyboard users, or suffer from motor disabilities that stop their ability to perform the delicate motor movements required to operate with a mouse. The key is to create interactive and navigation elements easily accessible through tabbing them and then displaying visible indicators that indicate the focus of your keyboard.
In other words, if there are input fields that allow typing text, a form, or drop-down menus, be sure these elements can be tabbed on as well as provide a clear indication of their present state. Screen readers and screen magnification software also make use of the focus indicator in order for determining which object is present at any given time.
It is important that all text in a webpage be easily accessible and easily read. This is an essential aspect of website accessibility, specifically for people who suffer from vision or hearing disabilities or are blind and use assistive technology to navigate your site.
Color Contrast
Using color schemes with sufficient contrast means that every user even those who suffer from color blindness web application development, are able to read and browse web pages. Many people with dyslexia benefit from high-contrast text too.
ARIA roles and properties describe the condition of widgets used to assistive technologies like screen users. For example”search,” the role “search” is used to designate a form field to the function of searching. Roles are solid and they do not change when the widget is upgraded, but properties change dynamically and are updated each time a person interacts with the widget.