Building websites for the blind or visually impaired accessible can be a big challenge, but it’s important to do if you want to make sure that everyone has equal access to your content. According to the ADA law act or Americans with Disabilities Act regulations that all electronic information and technology—i.e, your website—must be ADA-compliant website and accessible to those with disabilities.
Learn more about ADA-compliant regulations from the ADA.gov site.
In this blog post, we will discuss some tips and tricks that can be helpful to make your website user-friendly and accessible for the blind or visually impaired.
How Do You Make Your Website for the blind or the visually impaired?
Making your website accessible to the blind or visually impaired doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are a few tips that can help you make user-friendly websites for the blind or visually impaired:
1. Color Contrast
Many people are confused about the distinction between blindness and visual imperfections. Some people have visions, but they see colors and other things differently. As a result, choose contrasting colors for readability when choosing a color palette for the website.
Assume you’re developing your website at a fast time and aren’t familiar with the technical aspects of color selection for maximum readability. If such is the case, you may always hire a professional designer to complete the task. Make sure you communicate what you require in terms of website layout.
Also, explain the aims you wish to achieve with the color palette in unambiguous terms. The website’s accessibility will help it rank higher in Google’s algorithm.
Colors should not be used just as text since color-blind people will be unable to distinguish between the different colors on the screen and will thus miss the material entirely.
2. Add different textures
When you want to make your websites for the blind or visually impaired, consider adding different textures to bars in graphs so that folks who can’t see colors can understand the chart. Fortunately, Adobe Photoshop, the most widely used photo editing software, includes a feature that allows users to view the final product through the eyes of colorblind people. This is a significant benefit.
On a website, colorblind folks can now see what the rest of the world sees.
3. Text Size Adjustment
When people want to print letters to seem larger or smaller, they need glasses; the same rules apply to websites. Older people suffer from age-related vision loss, making it difficult for them to read small-font documents. A website’s text font must be adjustable so that it can be read easily.
4. Keyboard accessibility
Visitors must be able to navigate the website just using their keyboards. Using keyboards instead of a mouse makes it easier for visually impaired people to access websites. It’s difficult for partially blind people to tell where to click because they can’t see what’s on the screen. The keyboard command makes it easier for people with low vision to traverse the page.
5. Descriptive Links to make your website visually impaired accessible
Blind or people with low vision often use screen readers to know what is on their screen. Therefore, if they have an image on the screen without any description, it will be next to impossible for them to understand the concept. Also, avoid unclear descriptions such as “click here” buttons.
The screen readers will read out the “click here” text, but a visually impaired person will fail to understand where to click on the screen. Instead, provide descriptive links that let the visitor know where the link leads.
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What are the benefits of making user-friendly websites for the blind?
There are many benefits of making your website accessible to the blind or visually impaired, including:
- It increases your potential customer base
- It improves search engine optimization (SEO)
- It enhances the user experience for all visitors
- It complies with legal requirements
If you need any help redesigning your website and making your site user-friendly to the blind or visually impaired people you can get in touch with our partner company Technosmith.
Conclusion
There are many ways to make your websites for the blind or for those who are visually impaired. By following these tricks listed above, you can make your site more user-friendly and ensure that everyone can enjoy its content.