The majority of people’s lives now revolve around the internet. It is the go-to resource for cooking, shopping, employment, housing, travel, and staying in touch with loved ones.
But have you ever noticed that not everyone’s online experiences are the same? Indeed, at least one billion people worldwide are currently dealing with some kind of incapacity. Furthermore, their website access and connectivity are not as simple as they should be.
For this reason, any company that has an online presence should prioritise developing accessible websites. In addition to being the right thing to do, making sites more accessible generates greater traffic and revenue.
Furthermore, if an accessible web design in Melbourne is done by experts like Make My Website, it won’t impact your product’s user experience or UI. Our staff of accessibility specialists is prepared to take care of any compliance requirements for your website.
What is an Inclusive Design?
Accessible and inclusive web design is complementary. Maintaining accessibility techniques aids in keeping in mind the requirements and concerns of all groups of individuals, even though an all-inclusive design approach guarantees that none are missed.
The most crucial thing to remember when creating an inclusive design is that not all users will access or engage with the website similarly. To ensure no user feels left out, an inclusive design helps your website eliminate prejudice and preconceptions.
How to Create an Inclusive Design Persona?
- Name
- Goals
- Motivations
- Demographics
- Personality
- Fears
- Frustration
Ways to Make a Website Inclusive
1. Proper Content Structure
If your prospects can’t read your website, it doesn’t matter how good the material is. And since there are 253 million people with vision impairments worldwide, this is highly likely to occur. Thus, you run the danger of not getting in touch with them.
Users with cognitive, language, and visual impairments can easily read your information by following a few steps. You can avoid using fancy fonts, appropriately contrast the backdrop and content, and use headings and subheaders to divide the material into smaller chunks.
2. Use The Right Font and Text Size
Anyone may find it challenging to read a curvy or very tiny font. Only the proper fonts should be used in an inclusive Melbourne web design process; these should be avoided. Your website will look better overall and be more accessible to a wider audience if the text and font sizes are appropriate. A clear, readable typeface of at least 12 points, such as Verdana, is safe to use.
3. Proper Language and Tone of Voice
For a website to be inclusive and accessible, its language and tone of voice are crucial. People with impairments are badly impacted by websites that contain terms like “wheelchair-bound.”
The term “wheelchair user” is preferable. People with learning difficulties and visual impairments find it challenging to comprehend your web material because of the complicated vocabulary and grammar.
4. Content Markup
To indicate elements such as a button on a page, you need to employ the appropriate HTML markup and the proper content structure. Additionally, use heading tags (H1, H2, etc.) throughout the text to provide a correct code structure in the backend and a visual hierarchy in the front end. Additionally, it provides context for HTML components that are used by screen readers and the blind and visually handicapped when browsing.
5. Keywords Navigation
In an inclusive web design in Melbourne, keyboard accessibility is adequate. To access webpages, those who are visually blind, have visual impairments or have mobility limitations may rely on keyboards. In this instance, kids pick interactive webpage items using the tab key.
6. Useable Focus Status
The focus state is the blue outline you sometimes see around buttons or links. Highlighting the chosen page elements makes browsing webpages easier for users to use keyboards.
7. Images with Alt Text
Adding alt text to photos improves accessibility on your website. Screen readers read alt text and a brief image description to make it easier for the visually impaired to comprehend the information in an image.
The alt text should either be overly extensive or give a concise and pertinent explanation of the image. Repetitive and too complex descriptions are difficult for screen readers to read. On the other hand, only ornamental photos are identified by an empty attribute, which instructs screen readers to ignore the image.
8. Form Fields with Descriptive Labels
Forms are essential to marketing and sales, so make sure they are easily accessible by labelling form sections with relevant information. It is preferable to utilise labels made of placeholder text, which usually vanishes as the form is filled out. The visually handicapped find it challenging to read this and recall the purpose of the field.
Using brief instructions above the form field is another way to ensure users understand what to do while completing forms.
9. Simple Copywriting
Reaching a wider audience can be achieved by keeping your material and content short, straightforward, and free of superfluous jargon. Provide a glossary of terms or an alternative in simple English if you use acronyms or anything technical. Using more lists and the enlarged version of the acronym for the initial use are also beneficial.
10. Right Colour Contrast
A web design in Melbourne’s colour contrast is often overlooked. While most people are unaffected by text blocks on backgrounds of varied colours, people with vision impairments may find it extremely difficult to read the text.
The standard colour contrast ratio between text and background must be at least 4.5:1, according to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This guarantees that the text is readable even by people with low colour vision. Additionally, ensure that buttons, links, and other interactive components have colours contrasting with the rest of the material.
Conclusion
In summary, various disciplines, such as user experience (UX) and responsive and accessible design, are incorporated into an inclusive web design in Melbourne. The sole distinction is that inclusive designs provide a high-quality, widely accessible user experience and a welcoming website. Get the greatest inclusive website for your company right now by working with Make My Website, Melbourne’s top SEO agency.
