When it comes to accessibility, one major misconception is that accessibility and design may not go well together. People think that accessibility may make a page boring, ugly, and cluttered. For web developers and designers, it is necessary to have complete knowledge of accessible design in order to increase your chances of creating a compliant website. In fact, accessibility and design are partners who go along well if you are knowledgeable about them and know how to balance them. Designers need to partner with the accessibility teams to ensure that all types of user personas are considered while they build the websites.
Accessibility elements – AccessiBe
There are a few important on-page elements to consider while assuring the accessibility of a web page. Here, AccessiBe experts describe the same in the following:
- Go beyond the mouse
This is an obvious tip to consider in terms of accessibility. Being a web designer, you need to consider the visual positioning of the screen content. It is also important to consider the mouse interactions and the layout of your page design. You may also consider other factors like interaction models for the navigation and how the features work exclusively by using a keyboard only. You may ensure touch accessibility on mobile devices too. The users who tend to switch between different input methods like keyboard or touch should also be considered.
There is a diverse set of uses with different accessibility needs, which may include blind, hearing impaired, color blind, motor neuron disabilities, people with limited mobility, etc. There may be permanent or temporary conditions, and people may have many cognitive disabilities. The designers should also consider the old age people and the casual users also to offer the best experience.
Accessibility is a part of the challenges that will contribute to amazing products once solved correctly. Excluding accessibility-focused design is like excluding people from accessing your online offerings. You should follow the accessibility guidelines as per the WCAG standards.
Understanding UI
While the users come to your website or web applications, they may take the first few moments to get themselves oriented to the screen information. They understand what is possible for them to do on the page and how to move on to the next level. The sighted users can visually assess the page in order to get the layout and design. They can see different visual elements like groupings and headings, tables, trees, cards, etc.
On the other hand, blind users may rely fully on an ideal page structure that incorporates proper headings and other tags by following the semantic structure of HTML. The page navigation should also be clear for the screen readers or assistive devices to interpret it properly. For a designer, it is important to stick to the HTML standards as well as the W3C standards in order to ensure page structure as well as accessibility to effectively communicate to the users.
All these need to be effectively taken care of in order to ensure that you have made a fully accessible website. AccessiBe now offers different tools to make your website ADA compliant.