It’s depressing to me how inaccessible websites can be for people with disabilities. So, I’m putting together a simple list of things to do to improve web accessibilities:
- Include the alternative text tags in images. For users relying on a screen reader, it’s nice to know if an image is relevant and what it is. In HTML it’s as simple as adding a short line like so:
<img src="image.gif" alt="Dalmatian"> - Add subtitles to YouTube videos. Not only do hearing impaired viewers benefit, but also individuals that have difficulty with the included spoken language.
- Design with the assumption the user will want to change the screen size. Enlarged text helps farsighted users, while being designed to also fit on small screens helps mobile phone accessors.
- Define terms. Don’t assume that the reader knows what you know; their initial visit may be to learn something or be entertained (it isn’t very entertaining to not know what people mean). As the terms I use are usually abbreviations or acronyms I also use some uncommon HTML tags:
<abbr title="abbreviation"></abbr>tags are great for abbreviation.
Alternatively, the acronym tag:<acronym title="National Science Foundation">NSF</acronym>(which I admit I don’t use as often as I should.) - Make sure there’s a way back to the homepage from every page. It’s terrible to get lost.
- Avoid flash media. While great for embedding, flash isn’t necessarily accessible to everyone. (Consider screen reader, mobile phone and other non-traditional users.)
Tags: accessibility, design, web
