Conducting a Website Accessibility Audit
Your website visitors are all different and they have different needs.
Take care of your web content (text, audio, video, images) and make it accessible to all users, including people with hearing impairment, visual and motor disabilities. Making online platforms accessible is not an easy task. To ensure that all your content is optimized for people with special needs, you’ll need a website accessibility audit performed by a team of experienced web developers.
Today, the website support team at Drudesk explores what a website accessibility audit is and explains how to check your platform for compliance with WCAG.
What is accessibility audit?
The website accessibility audit is special research conducted by web development experts that helps evaluate how well the platform supports the needs of people with disabilities. Such testing shows what has to be improved in order to enhance customer satisfaction and provide a better user experience for visitors with special needs.
The BBC website is a great example of an accessible website. They provide a special guide on accessibility to make it possible for everyone to surf the platform.
Accessibility audits are conducted in compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) — a standard created to satisfy the needs of people with disabilities all over the world. It contains guidelines in accordance with such core principles as perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust content, as well as UI and UX components.
You can use the services, such as Lighthouse to check your website accessibility. If there are any issues, you should contact a web development agency immediately. The specialists at Drudesk are experienced in evaluating website accessibility and know what improvements should be done to make the platform more accessible. Learn more about the process of a site audit.
The process of website accessibility audit
The team at Drudesk offers customer-oriented website accessibility audits to ensure that your platform can be reached by all users. The process is simple:
- Contact us and explain what you want be done.
- Create a list of top URLs you want to be checked for accessibility (up to 12). Our customers usually list the homepage, service page, contact page, and other important landing pages).
- We’ll conduct some quick research to find core issues and discuss the details of our future cooperation.
- If you choose to cooperate with us, we’ll perform a complex website accessibility audit with appropriate technical solutions.
Tips to make your website accessible
Making websites accessible is not an easy task. Here is a list of website elements you can check and alter to make the platform accessible.
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Add alt text for images
Images are vital for understanding the content of any website. However, some users are not able to see them because of a physical disability. You can make images accessible to all users by adding alternative (alt) text and a description. People with sight issues can listen to the alt text to understand what an image represents.
Check out this guide on how to make images accessible.
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Use Accessible Text Formatting
Make it possible to increase and decrease text font on your website without affecting website functionality and content, as users with low visibility are not able to read small texts.
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Create subtitles for website audio and video content
Create subtitles or written transcripts for website audio and video content, because users with hearing impairment need them to understand what was played. Add a pause button to automatic audio content on your site. It is necessary because people with visual disabilities listen to the content, and simultaneous audio playing might get confusing.
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Give your links unique descriptions
Add link descriptions and explain where the link is going and what its purpose is. People listening to links have to know what links you suggest in order to choose if they want to proceed. If you link to a document, include the document type (DOC or PDF) and the file size into the description.
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Use Keyboard-Friendly navigation
Make it possible to operate all functionalities through keyboard interface without requiring specific timings for individual keystrokes.
Website accessibility checklist
Save this checklist to always make sure that your website is fully accessible.
Try website accessibility audit today
Don’t push the website accessibility audit to the back of the drawer. Each day of delay will result in a decrease in traffic and, as a result, lower conversion rates. Contact the support team at Drudesk to ensure that your platform is available for all users.