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    • Aug 11, 2023
    • 6 min read

12 Strategies for Enhancing Website Accessibility



12 Strategies for Enhancing Website Accessibility

To provide you with the best strategies for enhancing website accessibility, we've gathered insights from twelve top executives and marketing heads. They share their experiences, from implementing alt text for visual content to adding descriptive URLs for easy navigation. Discover the strategies these leaders have used to improve the user experience for disabled individuals on their websites.

  • Implement Alt Text for Visual Content

  • Emphasize ADA Compliance

  • Sprinkle Accessibility Magic with Screen-Reader

  • Maintain a Clear and Consistent Layout

  • Enhance Text Visibility with High Contrast

  • Use UserWay for Enhanced Accessibility

  • Include Images for Decoration, Not Information

  • Accommodate the Browser Zoom Function

  • Integrate Keyboard Navigation

  • Leverage White Space

  • Adopt Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

  • Add Descriptive URLs for Easy Navigation


Implement Alt Text for Visual Content

One crucial strategy we've implemented at Click Intelligence to enhance our website's accessibility is the use of “alt text” for all visual content. Alt text (alternative text) is a brief description of a photo or graphic content that screen readers can read aloud to visually impaired users.


For example, we added alt text to all images in our blog posts and throughout our website. We received positive feedback from a visually impaired user who appreciated our detailed alt text on a crucial infographic about SEO trends. He mentioned that the alt text allowed him to understand and benefit from the information just as effectively as a sighted user.


This strategy not only improves the user experience for visually impaired visitors but also aligns with SEO best practices, making our website more inclusive and effective.



Emphasize ADA Compliance

By adhering to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines, our aim was to eliminate barriers and ensure a seamless online experience for all users, regardless of their abilities.


Users met our efforts with positive feedback. For example, a visually impaired user expressed satisfaction with the smooth and efficient navigation on the website. They found browsing through service categories, completing forms, and interacting with various elements easy.


This enhanced experience allowed them to explore and engage with the offerings effortlessly. The website's accessibility features were continuously improved, aiming to provide a positive and empowering experience for all users, regardless of their abilities.


Ajay Prasad, Founder and President, GMR Web Team


Sprinkle Accessibility Magic with Screen-Reader

Well, we had an "enlightening" strategy to make our website accessible for everyone! Picture this: we sprinkled some "accessibility magic" on our site, and voila! The user experience soared higher than a caffeinated kangaroo!


Our top-notch strategy involved implementing an easy-peasy screen-reader feature. We observed a whopping 30% increase in website engagement among visually impaired users! One delightful example was when our visually impaired user, let's call them "Joyful Jenny," effortlessly browsed through our online store, filling her cart with goodies, and even leaving a heartwarming review.


Now, our website feels like a welcoming carnival for everyone, where even unicorns with accessibility concerns can have a blast. So, be a part of the inclusion fiesta, and let's make the internet more fabulous for all!



Maintain a Clear and Consistent Layout

When I first started my digital-marketing agency, accessibility wasn't something that I had fully considered. However, I soon realized its importance and implemented a strategy of maintaining a clear and consistent layout across our website.


The thought process behind this was straightforward: a clean layout can significantly ease the user journey, especially for those with visual or cognitive disabilities. For instance, our main navigation menu, once cluttered with unnecessary options, was simplified. We grouped similar services together and used clear, succinct labels.


After this change, one of our clients who uses a screen reader expressed her appreciation, mentioning how much simpler it was for her to find what she needed. The switch positively impacted our user-engagement statistics, giving us more returning visitors and better session durations.



Enhance Text Visibility with High Contrast

In my journey to make Steambase more accessible, I focused heavily on enhancing text visibility. I recognized that a high contrast between text and background is crucial for many users, especially those with vision impairments. To ensure maximum readability, I made it a priority to achieve a contrast level of 17.73 on the site, surpassing AAA standards for any text size and AA standards for user interface components and graphical objects.


Implementing this feature had immediate and profound impacts. I ran a survey to understand how this change affected users. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with 87% of respondents finding the website easier to read and navigate. This validates my efforts and proves the importance of high contrast in website design.



Use UserWay for Enhanced Accessibility

UserWay is an AI tool that complies with ADA law and conforms with WCAG 2.1 guidelines at every step of a web accessibility journey. UserWay.org provides various features to enhance accessibility, such as the ability to add accessibility widgets. These can assist users with visual impairments, motor disabilities, and other accessibility challenges. These widgets may include options for adjusting font size, changing color contrast, enabling keyboard navigation, and implementing screen readers.


The primary goal of the platform is to comply with web accessibility standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and ensure that websites are accessible to a broader audience, regardless of disabilities.


This allows businesses to rest easy, knowing they are being inclusive and do not have to worry about staying up-to-date.



Include Images for Decoration, Not Information

When designing a website, it's easy to get carried away with aesthetics and overlook accessibility. Often, this results in websites overloaded with images that convey essential information about the product or service.


Unfortunately, this approach doesn't efficiently convey that information when using a screen reader, leaving disabled visitors out of the loop. This issue becomes even more significant when the core digital product itself follows this ethos, causing certain users to be unable to use the product as intended, through no fault of their own.


Consequently, we have integrated into our core design methodology the practice of using images only for decoration, never to express key information. This ensures that users who rely on screen readers have full access to the information presented, and it has actually helped us win business from highly accessibility-conscious clients.


Oliver Savill, CEO and Founder, AssessmentDay


Accommodate the Browser Zoom Function

Every browser now comes with a zoom function, but it is essential that a website be tailored to accommodate it. By using a responsive layout, the website becomes accessible to visually impaired people. The goal is for the site to be zoomable up to 400% and, at the same time, not to lose its functionality. This way, easy reading and navigation with minimal scrolling by users is achieved.



Integrate Keyboard Navigation

One strategy I have implemented to enhance the accessibility of a website for disabled individuals is the integration of keyboard navigation. This approach is particularly beneficial for users who have motor disabilities and cannot use a mouse.


For instance, we designed a website for a local library where a significant portion of the users were elderly individuals, some of whom had motor disabilities. We implemented keyboard navigation, allowing users to navigate the website using various keys. This enabled users to access all the website's features, including searching for books, reserving books, and renewing loans, with no mouse.


The results were quite revealing. The overall user satisfaction rate increased by 30%. Specifically, among users with motor disabilities, the satisfaction rate was up by 50%. This clearly demonstrated that the implementation of keyboard navigation significantly improved the user experience, particularly for users with motor disabilities.


Johannes Larsson, Founder and CEO, Financer.com


Leverage White Space

For visually impaired users, tracking text horizontally can be especially difficult. When text falls within a container that's too wide, or there isn't enough space between lines or paragraphs, it is extremely difficult for some disabled individuals to read. That's why changes have been made to our website over the past year that better leverage white space on the page.


Narrowed text boxes and on-page containers, additional padding between paragraphs, and bigger fonts have been implemented. Adding white space to our pages has enhanced the accessibility of our site for disabled visitors, as well as made the pages more minimalist and attractive to non-disabled people. It's a simple, yet effective update.



Adopt Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Improving website accessibility for people with disabilities should be a top priority in the information technology sector. At TechAhead, we've adopted the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and ensured our website complies with these requirements. This involves using design features and aspects that enable an inclusive user experience for all visitors, including those with impairments.


For instance, our website is screen-reader compatible, allowing users who are blind to easily view the material. We enable screen readers to narrate visual information by offering alternate text explanations for photos and multimedia content. Additionally, our website is keyboard-accessible to assist people with motor limitations who prefer keyboard inputs over conventional mouse inputs.



Add Descriptive URLs for Easy Navigation

As a company that runs a website with decent traffic but can't quite invest in fully enhancing the accessibility of our website for disabled individuals, one step we took was adding descriptive URLs to all of our web pages.


Adding richer URL descriptions helps improve context and information for each page, and these URLs make the website much easier to navigate for disabled individuals. We've also tried to eliminate anchor texts like "Read More" to keep things more straightforward and descriptive.


Tom Golubovich, Head of Marketing, Ninja Transfers


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