Some people think that creating an accessible website limits the ability for the design to be impactful and creative, but usually the opposite is true — prioritizing website accessibility can actually inspire creative site design. Using elements with sufficient color contrast or thoughtfully integrating images, for example, can offer designers the creative spark that can help make a website both beautiful and accessible.
Color choices can help your site and brand stand out, and can also be a powerful tool for creating accessible content. There are several points to consider regarding color use on your website.
One common misconception is that pictures must be avoided for a website to be accessible. Omitting photos for the sake of it does little to improve accessibility, although it can lower a website's aesthetic appeal. Use beautiful imagery to help tell your brand's story — just make sure to be thoughtful in its use and include adequate text alternatives.
Alt text refers to a text-based description of an image or other non-text content. Because assistive technologies like screen readers and refreshable Braille displays can't inherently tell what s picture depicts, they need text alternatives to communicate that information.
This can be very helpful for people with cognitive disabilities or dyslexia, but really this practice can be great for everyone. Breaking up lengthy paragraphs helps content become more digestible and understandable. It also gives people a different way to process information, as people may more-easily understand or prefer visual material.
This refers to readable text presented inside an image, including text that has been presented in a fixed image form in order to achieve a certain visual style. Images of text present some unique accessibility considerations — the images require alt text like any other image that isn't purely decorative, but also are unlikely to maintain their quality when magnified and don't offer users the ability to adjust the font, color, and size to meet their needs. Images of text can also hinder SEO. Remember that if you do need to use an image of text to still consider color contrast ratios.
Incorporating video into your site design can be a creative and fun way to present content. It can also be an extremely effective way, as videos generate 12 times more shares than images and text combined.
In order to ensure the accessibility of your videos, add captions and transcripts.
Captions, usually "closed," are the visual display of the audio in the video. On-screen captions, which must be in-sync with the audio as it changes, provide people who are deaf or have hearing loss the same information that someone receives by listening to the sound. They also help you reach a wider audience beyond that, such as people watching in silent environments.
YouTube and Facebook, the most popular video platforms on the web, let you add auto-generated or manually-created captions to your videos.
Transcripts are essentially the text-based versions of your videos. Transcripts should usually include the spoken word and also important on-screen information. They allow people who can't or prefer not to watch the video to receive the information in text form.
Check out the complete Checklist for Creating Accessible Videos.
Many of the most popular websites today are clean and easy to navigate. Complicated or cluttered page designs confuse users, sometimes inadvertently navigating them away from the information they want. Google's home page, for instance, is simply a search bar — and it's the most-used website in the world.
Keeping things clear and clean helps ensure that the highest number of users will have the easiest time using your site.
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