Accessibility best practices

As we continue to build accessible products and services, it’s crucial to keep up with the latest guidelines and standards to ensure that what we build meets the needs of all users. After all, accessibility is essential to creating a more inclusive and equitable society where everyone has equal access to information and resources.

In this blog post, we’ll explore essential accessibility best practices for designers and developers, supported by scientific research to understand the real impact they have on users. The importance of keeping up with the latest guidelines and standards will be emphasized while resources such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines will be mentioned to guide designers and developers in their accessibility journey.

Key Accessibility Best Practices For Developers

One of the most important accessibility best practices is to use semantic HTML. Semantic HTML means using HTML tags to convey the meaning and structure of your content. For example, using the h1 tag for the main heading and the p tag for paragraphs. This helps users with assistive technology to understand the content and navigate your website more easily.

2. Alternative Text for Images

Images are an important part of any website or application. However, users with visual impairments cannot see images, so it’s essential to provide alternative text for images. Alternative text is a brief description of the image that can be read by screen readers and other assistive technology.

3. Captions and Transcripts for Videos

Videos are becoming more popular on websites and applications. However, users with hearing impairments cannot hear the audio in videos, so it’s important to provide captions and transcripts. Captions are text that appears on the screen that describes the audio in the video. Transcripts are a text version of the audio in the video.

4. ARIA Roles and Attributes

ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a set of attributes that you can add to HTML to make it more accessible. ARIA roles describe the purpose of an element, and ARIA attributes provide additional information about the element.

5. Keyboard Accessibility

Keyboard accessibility means that users can navigate your website or application using only a keyboard. This is important because users with disabilities may not be able to use a mouse or other pointing device. You can ensure keyboard accessibility by providing keyboard shortcuts, skip links, and ensuring that all interactive elements are accessible via the keyboard.

6. Screen Reader Accessibility

Screen reader accessibility involves architecting web content that is structured, labeled, and coded in a way that can be easily understood by screen reader software. This includes providing text alternatives for non-text content such as images and multimedia, using headings to organize content and labeling form fields and controls with descriptive and meaningful text.

Key Accessibility Best Practices For Designers

Designers should ensure that there is enough contrast between text and background colors to make content legible for users with visual impairments or color blindness. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) recommends a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.

2. Navigation

Navigation should be clear and consistent across a website or application. This helps users with cognitive or visual impairments to understand the layout and structure of the content.

3. Headings

Headings should be meaningful and descriptive, and should follow a logical hierarchy. This helps users with screen readers or other assistive technologies to understand the structure and organization of the content.

4. Language

Content should be written in clear and concise language, using simple sentence structures and avoiding jargon or unexplained technical terms. This helps users with cognitive or language impairments to understand the content.

5. Text Formatting

Proper formatting, such as using bold or italics for emphasis, can help users with cognitive or visual impairments to understand the content.

6. User Tested Designs

Designers should test their designs with users with disabilities to ensure that the content is accessible and usable. This can help identify and fix accessibility issues before the design is finalized.

A Few Resources For Accessibility Best Practices

Several places, including the following, provide accessibility best practices:

Summing Up

Software development is constantly evolving, and new technologies and techniques emerge all the time. It’s critical to stay up to date on the latest accessibility guidelines and standards because doing so can not only improve the experience of users with disabilities but also benefit all users, regardless of ability. We can create more inclusive digital experiences for everyone by incorporating accessibility from the design and development stages.

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References

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