Website Accessibility: A primer

Posted on | August 6, 2010 | No Comments



Website accessibility is becoming more and more relevant in today’s online climate. With users being ever more demanding, a properly built website can mean the difference between success and failure.

Here are a few ways that having an accessible site can help you get more traffic and conversions:

  • There are indications that the Google algorithm can prefer well structured HTML
  • The site will work on a wider selection of browsers and be usable by a wider audience
  • Accessible sites are usable by disabled/handicapped users, which can net even more traffic

All well and good, but how can you make a site accessible? Here are just a few of the many steps:

  • Ensure there is a lot of contrast between the background and text colours, this helps readability
  • Make sure that users can access your site without needing to use Flash, Javascript, or specific plugins. These can be nice additions, but don’t make them a requirement.
  • Don’t use Frames for layout – these have proven to be confusing for users and search spiders alike.
  • Make sure your code validates – this can help out with some browsers and reduces the chance of errors with the site’s appearance
  • Test your site on multiple computers, operating systems and browsers. We have lost count of how many times we have seen sites from other developers which only work in one specific browser

More information and tips available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/full-checklist.html – it is a good idea to make sure your site validates to at least AA standards – something we at Deepblue strive to do for every site we build.

Category: Web design best practices

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