When a company is assessing its digital presence, it is important to ensure that the application, website or software program is fully accessible to as many users as possible, including those living with a disability.
The majority of the top one million websites are missing key accessibility features intended to make the site usable for people living with a disability. Nearly one out of every three users lives with some sort of disability. That means these websites are missing out on a high number of potential customers! By not providing features such as screen readers, voice input, motion tracking or braille readers, websites and apps are not optimizing their site to reach all of their audience. Let’s apply ‘Accessible Design’.
What’s the business for accessibility? Mass accessibility has been a consideration inside well-regulated industries such as utilities, communications, and transportation. It is only in recent years that accessibility has become vitally important across multiple industries and sectors. Increasing the ways a company is accessible to their customers means that they are able to access more customers and connect with them.
Some of the most common issues that can easily be fixed are:
- Adjusting for Low Color Contrast: Without enough contrast between the text color and the background it is written on, words and images are hard to decipher for customers with poor eyesight. When designing a homepage, make sure that the text is easily readable.
- Additional Text for Images: When posting an image, descriptive text can often help give the image some context, and will improve understanding of the content. This will lead to more interaction with the webpage and improve user engagement, not to mention, space for brand personality and commentary.
- Provide descriptive text: Just like images, other components of a website may also need to be accompanied by descriptive text. This hidden text can be read by assistive technologies and allows users to better understand what actions are available to them, without affecting the design choices.
Integrating Accessibility as part of the design process, Vivus is able to provide software options that account for user accessibility and improve usability by,
- Ensuring that all features are usable by as many people as possible.
- Using legible typography and colors that provide sufficient contrast.
- Appropriate use of animation.
- Embedding text alternatives to important media.
Vivus is a small team of dedicated design, development, and digital technology experts that can help you define, design and build digital products, offering custom software, mobile, and web application development consulting.
