Using 10 years of design experience to help handmade businesses build websites into business assets.
3 common accessibility changes anyone can make
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A lot of accessibility requirements are built into how the website is coded. Only a developer (hobbyist or professional) can make those changes. Thankfully, some of the changes that anyone can make have a big impact on the usability of your website. Alt textAlt text is a written description of an image. Screen readers use it to describe pictures to the visually impaired. In some websites, the alt text appears when the image is broken, which allows all users to make sense of the content. Harvard has a great article discussing best practices for alt text. Color selectionYou can make any color work but you need the right combination of colors. You want to make sure that your colors have enough contrast between each other so you can read it. You don’t want to design your website to have navy blue text on a black background. It would be nearly impossible to read without highlighting the text. You can use WebAIM’s contract checker to determine if your colors are legible. Font sizeA good rule of thumb is to have your body font be at least 16px. You don’t want your users to struggle to read the content you spent so much time putting together. Colors can also impact what font size you should use. The less contrast there are between colors, the larger you need to make the font so that it’s accessible. These changes can make a big impact for all of your customers. The more accessible you make your website, the more people can use it. If Thor had thumbs, he'd use your site. Have a great day! |
Ed, Cagebreakers Creative
Using 10 years of design experience to help handmade businesses build websites into business assets.
Internet customers have very little patience. If they don’t find what they’re looking for at first glance, they will leave. You can help yourself by putting yourself in your customer’s shoes. 1. Look at your analytics. Somewhere you should be able to see a list of the most popular sizes (mobile and desktop) people are using to look at your website. 2. Choose the most popular sizes and look at your site in that size. Note: You don’t really need precise sizes, but knowing most of your customers...
I went to Boston earlier this year and went on several tours. There was one in particular that stuck with me. The tour guide was endlessly knowledgeable, charming, and funny. His business was also new. I went to leave a review on his website and the link was broken. When I went to contact him, the contact form was also broken. Most people aren’t motivated enough to try again. Once they hit a single issue, most customers will leave. One easy way to prevent this is to test your own site. (It...
Barry the mascot for Serious Business company. Meet Barry. (All names have been changed for privacy reasons.) Barry was the mascot for Serious Business. Serious Business helped smaller companies run their business. Barry was everywhere. He announced sales in emails, appeared on every page of the site, and was in a decent chunk of the printed catalog. Employees even had Barry-sonas. A lot of time, energy, money, and love was spent on making Barry happen. There was a problem, though: Barry was...