The National Center on Deafblindness has some free resources to make your website more accessible, and we’ve outlined some simple actions below that you can implement today!
5 Easy Steps to Improve Accessibility
While some of these steps do require a small amount of technical know-how, these are relatively easy ways to improve accessibility with your marketing materials.
You or your marketing team should have no trouble implementing these steps in no time!
1 — Create Video Captions & Transcripts
Adding captions to any video content you produce on your website or social media will allow for the hearing impaired to engage with it. There are tons of tools that will help you add captions to videos or create transcripts! You can also provide a transcript for audio and/or video you produce, which can be read by a screen reader.
2 — Utilize High-Contrast & Alt Text
Using high-contrast text will help the visually impaired more easily view and read your marketing materials. Likewise, using alternative text – more commonly known as “alt text” – on images on your website is a big plus. Screen readers will read the alt text aloud so that the user knows there is an image, and what the image is.
3 — Ensure a Keyboard-Friendly Website Layout
Adaptive keyboards and other assistive technologies are sometimes used by individuals with disabilities. Your website should have a layout and navigation that is keyboard-friendly – that is, easy to navigate using only a keyboard. This is pretty easy to test yourself, and this article from Recite Me can help you test your website’s keyboard friendliness.
4 — Produce Screen-Reader Friendly Content
Making your website screen reader friendly is important. Screen readers are used for converting text-to-speech, or “TTS”, as well as converting onscreen text into braille. Using headings (i.e, H1, H2) to structure and organize your content will help users that rely on a screen reader to more easily navigate and engage with the layout and content on your website. This also extends to using descriptive headings, alt text, and HTML.
5 — Implement a Color-Blindness Scan
Knowing whether or not your website is accessible to individuals with color blindness is important, too. There are some free tools like this Colorblind Web Page Filter by Toptal that allow you to see how your website looks to people with different types of color blindness. A lot of this has to do with using the proper contrast, too!
Accessibility is for Everyone
Doing good is good business! Ensuring your marketing materials are accessible for everyone isn’t just about following some rules and regulations – it’s going to win you customers.