5 Ways Content Can Improve Websites’ AccessibilityTechnology by Marlon Berry - September 9, 2019September 9, 20190 Creating a website requires many processes. People mostly focus on the design and style of websites. But little did they know, accessibility is one of the important parts for building websites. There is no surprise that the website’s accessibility is often forgotten and treated as a non-priority element.Connect with Yes Web Design Studio at https://yeswebdesignstudio.comDo you want better website performance? If yes, taking care of web accessibility is what you should do. There are a lot of relatively simple things you can do to make websites more accessible. It can significantly improve your user experiences for everyone. Or you can find a web design company to help you with this issue.BENEFITS OF AN ACCESSIBLE WEBSITEBetter SEOImprove usability for visitors with all conditionsBuild Positive Public RelationsAvoid Discrimination and Legal ComplicationsHOW TO IMPROVE WEBSITE ACCESSIBILITY?TIP #1 GIVE CLEAR AND DESCRIPTIVE HEADINGSA simple way to improve accessibility is by writing clearer headlines and subheadings. Can you summarize the topic of every section in the website without referencing the body copy or links? Probably no right? That’s why the selection of words is very crucial. Using the right words can increase the accessibility of your website. Remember, the wording does matter!Also, you have to embrace length. The clarity in headlines often means using more words in the sentence. But be careful not to overuse words that can mess up the cleanliness of your website. In this way, you can achieve the goal of having a perfect website with good accessibility.TIP #2 USE UNIQUE AND/OR MEANINGFUL BUTTON AND LINK NAMESHave you ever visited a website knowing exactly what you are looking for, but have no clue about where to find it? That’s why an outstanding button and link names are important. You would see eye-catching headings and subheads first, then you would look for links below. The problems are first you may not be able to find the link, or second, you do not know where it will lead you to.Plus, simple buttons and/or links like “learn more,” “read this,” or “see more” leave a negative effect on users. These terms disallow users of screen readers to skip from link to link or ignore the content in-between that helps screen-reader users quickly get where they want to go. Also, it is unhelpful when all that the user hears is ‘click here’ or ‘more’ A simple solution is to provide a more descriptive link in clear and specific language. It should inform the user about the link and where they will take them. For instance, you just simply describe the context like ‘learn more about S.E.O’ or ‘click here for the full article on S.E.O’. Another tip is to inform if a link will open high-bandwidth media (e.g. PDF or video) within the linked text.TIP #3 ADD CLEAR, USEFUL ALT TAGS TO IMAGESAnother key player in website accessibility is the alt tag. Alt tags make sure that every non-text information is delivered to people in all conditions. It provides a description for low-vision and blind users to understand the content of images, data visualizations, and infographics.The key focus here is to create clear, descriptive, and natural-sounding alt tags for better accessibility. Also, using keywords or keyphrases that are relevant to your content will improve the alt tags. To be more clear, if you put up a photo of bananas, then you should simply describe the content of the image — “Closeup of bananas.”If your image contains useful data like a graph, you have to make sure the alt tag contains the same data describing the information of a given photo — “95% percent of …..”This way you can make graphical content more accessible for all users. Not sure about how to improve your website accessibility? Contact a web design company for clear advice.TIP #4 WRITE CLEAR AND ACTIONABLE ERROR MESSAGESError messages are often forgotten despite its importance. It is a key point delivering to users about the error of a certain situation. When writing error messages, you should focus on the solution and don’t just describe the problem.There are two types of error messaging: EXPLICITLY ERROR MESSAGING (WITHOUT DIRECTION) — states that there’s an error, but doesn’t make clear how to fix it e.g. Course number formatting is incorrect. EXPLICITLY ERROR MESSAGING (WITH DIRECTION) — adds a way to fix the problem e.g. Course number formatting is incorrect. Please enter a 3-digit number. IMPLICITLY ERROR MESSAGING — implies that there was a problem by explaining how to fix it e.g. Please enter a 3-digit course number.TIP #5 PROVIDE ALTERNATIVE CONTENTAll of the tips mentioned above are very crucial in creating an accessible website. However, one of the core principles of the website accessibility is to make content available to all people in any conditions. Many techniques can help to improve the accessibility of your website, but some types of content cannot be made accessible to some users such as audio to those hearing-impaired users.Then what should you do in this situation? Providing text alternatives for any non-text content is what you should do. So, it can be changed into other forms like large print, Braille, symbols or simpler language. For example, providing a transcript of the conversation in a video on your site for users to download or read. Another solution is to add captions to the videoAll five tips mentioned above are not a hard task to do. It just takes some time and interest to be able to complete all. Finding any help? Look for a trusty web designer to help you.Building the perfect website is a hard work to complete as every part of the website is important. Better web accessibility gives better performance for your website. By focusing both of website’s design and accessibility, you can create an outstanding website for your business. Do you want any help for better website performance? Hire a professional web design company as your advisor.Yes Web Design Studio is Thailand’s leading web design company that believes in the impact of our work on our client’s success. Yes is an independent playground to showcase our unlimited creativity and imagination. With our passion and client-focus philosophy, Yes has created many outstanding and innovative websites for our clients since the start of our journey. At Yes! we strive to exceed client expectations and confidently lead the trend of web design. Our company receives constant trust in creating exciting projects from our clients across all industries internationally.