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Creating an inclusive online experience is not just an ethical consideration but also a legal requirement. Website accessibility ensures that individuals with disabilities can navigate, interact, and engage with your website’s content. By implementing accessibility features, you can improve usability, reach a broader audience, and enhance your website’s overall user experience. If you’re new to the concept of website accessibility, this beginner’s guide will provide you with the necessary knowledge and steps to get started.
Website accessibility refers to the practice of designing and developing websites that are usable by individuals with disabilities. Disabilities can vary widely, including visual, auditory, physical, and cognitive impairments. Accessible websites enable users to perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the content effectively, regardless of their disabilities.
To ensure website accessibility, it’s crucial for website and content creators to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which provide a set of standards and recommendations for creating accessible digital content. The WCAG covers various aspects, including perceivable content, operable user interfaces, understandable information, and robust technology.
Textual Content: Use clear and concise language for all website text. Structure content using headings, subheadings, and paragraphs. Provide alternative text (alt text) for images, allowing screen readers to describe visual elements.
Color Contrast: Ensure sufficient color contrast between foreground and background elements, making it easier for visually impaired users to read content.
Navigation and Keyboard Accessibility: Create a logical and intuitive website structure with easy-to-use navigation menus. Ensure that users can navigate and interact with your website using only a keyboard, without relying on a mouse or touch screen.
Forms and Input Fields: Design forms with clear labels and provide helpful instructions. Validate form inputs to ensure error messages are descriptive and understandable.
Join the thousands of businesses already benefiting from AccessiBe’s advanced AI-powered accessibility solution. Sign up today and make your website accessible to all, while complying with global accessibility standards.
Video and Audio: Provide captions or transcripts for videos and audio files. This allows individuals with hearing impairments to understand the content. Also, provide controls for users to adjust volume or pause audio and video elements.
Images and Graphics: Use descriptive alt text to convey information contained within images. Decorative images should have empty alt attributes, indicating they don’t convey any important information.
Regularly testing and evaluating your website’s accessibility is essential to identify and address any accessibility barriers. Here are a few viable methods to check that your accessibility goals are being met:
Manual Testing: Conduct manual accessibility tests using screen readers, keyboard navigation, and other assistive technologies to simulate the experience of users with disabilities.
Automated Testing: Utilize automated accessibility testing tools that scan your website for potential accessibility issues. These tools can help identify common accessibility violations and provide recommendations for improvement. Userway.org and Accessibe.com have excellent, easy-to-use, website scanning tools that are completely free to use.
User Testing: Involve users with disabilities in your testing process to gain valuable insights and feedback. Their first-hand experience can help you uncover accessibility issues that might have been missed through other testing methods.
The very best way to ensure an accessible website, is to code and populate your website to the WCAG standards during the initial development, avoiding accessibility issues from the start. It should be pointed out, however, that accessibility is an ongoing process and so websites that started out accessible, may have accessibility issues introduced due to content maintenance, additional development, and the periodic changes to the WCAG standards.
For businesses that already have a website, starting over with a new website is neither practical nor affordable. A business can instead hire website developers who specialize in website accessibility to retroactively correct accessibility issues. Depending on the number of issues and the size of your website, this manual remediation is also likely to be cost prohibitive. Fortunately, there are automation tools available that can simplify the process at a much lower cost.
UserWay and Accessibe are two popular accessibility solution providers that can automate many of the tasks involved in making your website accessible, by using a plugin that gets installed directly into your website. These tools use artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to analyze, modify, and optimize your website’s accessibility features. They can automatically generate alternative text for images, improve color contrast, enable keyboard navigation, and provide various other accessibility enhancements.
Identify accessibility barriers and improve your website’s usability for all visitors with UserWay’s accessibility scanner. Optimize your site and avoid costly lawsuits. Scan your website with UserWay today.
Getting started with website accessibility doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. By understanding the principles of website accessibility, creating accessible content, testing and evaluating your website, and utilizing automation tools like the UserWay and Accessibe website plugins, you can take significant steps toward making your website inclusive for all users.
Website accessibility is an ongoing process. As technology evolves and new guidelines emerge, it’s important to stay updated and continue improving the accessibility of your website. Website accessibility plugins can greatly simplify the process, automating many of the accessibility tasks and ensuring that your website is accessible to the widest possible audience. This even includes ongoing monitoring and remediation should new issues arise.
Embrace accessibility, and let your website become a platform that empowers and includes everyone.
Last updated: May 22, 2023
These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a legally binding agreement between you and Accessifi LLC (“our”, “we”, “us”, or “Accessifi”).
By accessing or using our Services, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms.
If you do not agree to be bound by the provisions of these Terms or if you do not have the legal authority to accept them on behalf of the entity you represent, you may not use or access our services.
These Terms apply to all users of the Services, as follows (each of which shall be referred to as “user” or “you”):
Accessifi LLC is delivering, in good faith, access to services provided by AccessiBe via a partner relationship we have with AccessiBe.
The partnership agreement entitles us to make limited discounts to the price you pay to license the AccessiBe accessWidget, when ordering directly though us. Discounts are calculated by a percentage reduction to AccessiBe’s retail price which is wholly controlled by AccessiBe. AccessiBe have the sole right to update their retail pricing and licensing terms, over which we have absolutely no control. Your price will be fixed for term period of your license. It is possible that accessiBe could adjust the pricing at the time of your license renewal. It is entirely out of our realm of influence. AccessiBe may also change our pricing flexibility in the future, which may affect the offer we can present to you.
AccessiBe have sole control over the design, functionality, code, and availability of the accessWidget. Accessifi cannot be held responsible for any actions taken by AccessiBe that may impact the accessWidget in any way.
Accessifi offer an accessWidget installation service for those who request our assistance with the accessWidget installation. We are experienced developers who have performed many installations of the accessWidget. You agree to hold us harmless in the event of a problem during installation that can be shown to be caused by existing issues on your website, or concurrent activity on your website that is not being performed by us.
Any changes to the terms of service set by AccessiBe are solely the responsibility of AccessiBe. You agree to hold harmless Accessifi, should AccessiBe change their terms of service in any way that you find disagreeable.
Accessifi will fulfill our responsibility to contact AccessiBe, per the terms of their litigation support package, in the event you are subject to a website accessibility lawsuit while you have an active accessWidget license purchased through us. You agree to hold Accessifi LLC harmless in the event that a website accessibility lawsuit against you is successful, or if you choose to settle with any plaintiff involved in that lawsuit.
Accessifi strongly believe the accessiBe accessWidget is a viable solution to website accessibility and website ADA compliance issues. However we are not responsible for any damages resulting from your use of any software or services owned and administered by AccessiBe.
Accessifi can provide manual website accessibility remediation services if requested. We are experienced website developers and we will provide our best efforts to fix specific accessibility problems, agreed between you and us prior to beginning any manual remediation services. You agree to hold harmless Accessifi LLC in the event you are subject to a legal accessibility complaint or any other damages concerning specifically the issues Accessifi LLC agreed to work on. We are committed to further remediating any of these issues on your website.
When you purchase an accessWidget license through Accessifi, you are required to remunerate Accessifi, the full amount agreed between you and Accessifi, within 7 days of the date noted on the invoice.
The accessWidget license becomes active at the time of Accessifi generating the invoice.
Invoices will be sent by email, along with a separate follow-up email confirming that the invoice was received. Accessifi LLC are not responsible for non-receipt of the invoice, the invoice email, or the follow-up email.
If the 7 day period from the invoice date passes without full remuneration Accessifi reserves the right to terminate your accessWidget license agreement without repercussion from you. We have to do this to ensure that the cancellation is completed with the refund period set by AccessiBe. In the event that AccessiBe charges Accessifi a pro-rated license fee for the time the accessWidget license was active before cancellation, you are responsible for remunerating Accessifi to cover that pro-rated charge. You will be notified of that charge via a separate invoice from Accessifi, send via email.
We will provide you with a secure payment link, operated by the well-established online payment solution provider, Stripe. If you cannot for any reason make your payment online, you may suggest another means of payment in writing (email) before the invoice is generated. You may use the alternative method if both you and we agree in writing. If you do not agree to remunerate Accessifi online via the secure payment page from Stripe, nor the agreed upon alternative payment method, you may not purchase a license from us.
Licenses are only refundable and cancellable within 7 days of the original invoice creation date, noted on the invoice. After 7 days from the date of the original invoice the license fees are non-cancellable, and non-refundable.
By purchasing your accessWidget through Accessifi, you agree not to edit the accessWidget installation code without our written (email) consent. Doing so could affect the performance and effectiveness of the accessWidget. Any unauthorized changes is a violation of the discounted license pricing agreement between you and Accessifi. Any changes to the “AccessiBe” callout and link (the “mark”) at the bottom of the accessWidget UI is a violation of the discounted pricing agreement between you and Accessifi. Refusal to reinstate the AccessiBe mark on the accessWidget UI will invalidate the discount agreement with immediate effect at which time the license pricing will switch to the retail price set by AccessiBe.
We recommend that you read the following section titled “AccessiBe Terms of Service”.
We, like you, are beholden to AccessiBe’s Terms of Service for using their AccessWidget, and any and all other related services that AccessiBe provide, including the website auditing service “AccessFlow”. AccessiBe are solely responsible for the AccessWidget, the license pricing policy, and any other services that they provide. We strongly recommend that you, as our client, read their terms of service. To find their terms of service, please follow these steps:
1: Click on this link to visit the AccessiBe website: https://accessibe.com/a/a2i3kaw
2: Scroll to the very bottom of the target page that results from clicking on the link in step 1.
3: At the bottom of the page on the AccessiBe website, click on the link “Terms of Service”.