Accessibility should be one of the defining characteristics of your WordPress website. Accessible websites have numerous benefits, which include but are not limited to faster loading speed, improved SEO, and better PR. In a nutshell, accessible websites are your way to success!
If you intend to make your website accessible, it should not only be you who thinks about web accessibility but rather everyone who is involved in the process should think along similar lines. This includes digital project managers, content writers, editors, and designers.
In order to create an accessible website, you need to make text screen reader-friendly. It should include relevant alt text for images, ensure that colour contrast is optimal, enable captions for videos, and ensure that your website can be navigated through the keyboard.
You can make use of the following information to make your WordPress website accessible!
WordPress themes that promise accessibility
Once you realise the importance of accessibility for your WordPress website, you should visit the WordPress Theme Directory that is available on wordpress.org or talk to your web expert to make it WCAG compliance.
The WordPress website gives you an option to filter and see themes that rank high on accessibility. This will save you from the hectic process of navigating through thousands of themes and will display only those themes which fulfil your criteria.
WordPress has its own list of requirements that needs to be met for these themes. These requirements are decided by the WordPress Theme Review Team and include:
Relevant alt text for images
When we talk about increasing the accessibility of our business website, we are also talking about making them accessible for people who are visually impaired or have learning disabilities. Such users use alt text to make sense of images that are included in the content.
Therefore, any and every image included in your content should have alt text.
Do not know how to do so?
No worries!
You can reach out to us for assistance, and we will help you add alt text for your images!
Links and menus that are keyboard accessible
Your business website also needs to be accessible to users who have mobility impairments and cannot use a mouse. Such users exclusively rely on keyboards to navigate through websites. Therefore, your website theme should be coded in such a way that these users can access links, menus, buttons, and form fields by using the tab key on the keyboard.
Even your drop-down menus should be accessible for users who solely rely on keyboards and cannot use a mouse!
Focus indicators that are visible
Users who solely rely on a keyboard need some sort of visual representation on the screen to see where they are right now and where they are heading towards. If there are no focus indicators, such users will have no idea what they are interacting with.
One simple test that you could run to figure out whether your business website has focus indicators or not is to use your keyboard to switch to another web page.
If you are able to figure out which link is which, well, and good, if not, you need to increase the visibility of your focus indicators.
If you need any sort of help in doing so, our team of experts is here to assist you.
Remember, we are just one call away!
Reasonable colour contrast
You also need to make your website accessible to those who are visually impaired. How can you possibly do that, though?
People with visual impairment often find it difficult to read content on low colour contrast and low brightness background. That is why we recommend you to stick to a contrast ratio of 4:5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for a text that is in large font size.
Local HTML for buttons and links
If your markup is incorrect, it will act as a hindrance for your users to use custom controls.
To avoid facing this issue, you would ideally want your button to act like one. To do so, you should use the <button> element. It is well-known and well-understood by all sorts of technological gadgets.
Skip Links
Skip links are those links that save keyboard users from the trouble of having to go through the list of links again and again. These links can be made invisible through CSS. Once they have been made invisible, they will only be visible when tabbed through the page, or when a screen reader is used.
Semantic HTML headings
Headings are one of the most important elements of your content. When your headings are well-structured and carefully planned, it becomes easier for sighted users to scan through the page and reach their desired destination. As far as screen reader users are concerned, they can smoothly navigate using the heading level to their desired destination. Hence, well-planned headings benefit all sorts of users!
No media that plays automatically
Media files that start playing automatically disturb and distress users who have any sort of cognitive impairment. This is because these autoplay media files make things go out of their control. Therefore, it is recommended that you add media elements in plugins.
Explicitly labelled forms
Forms are a significant part of almost all business websites. They are what enable the businesses and visitors to establish connections and stay in touch. That is why it is absolutely essential that these forms should be properly labelled so that the visitors know which information needs to be entered where.
Conclusion
By ensuring that your website has all these elements, you can strengthen the link between your business website and the visitors by making it more accessible. Nevertheless, just following these things would not be enough. If you really wish to make your website accessible, you need to have a mind-set that keeps accessibility at the forefront throughout the process of web development as well as maintenance.
If you wish to get such a website designed for your business, CONTACT US NOW!!!
We have been helping our clients design accessible websites for years. Hence, years of experience at our hands have made a pro at this job.
To benefit from our expertise, leave a message below, and we shall get back to you at our earliest!
Sajan Neupane 
