You’ve got your website planned. You are clear on your messages, colours, images – tick. You’ve chosen a font which represents your brand. You’ve got your content written, blogs are loaded. Social media posts planned to push people to your new site. Deep breath. Ready to go.
But are you?
Have you thought about the breadth of people you are appealing to? The web, like the world at large, should be inclusive. A person should not visit your website and feel excluded for any reason. Accessibility is key.
But, what does this mean?
At its most basic level, your website should be legible both in terms of the font you use the content you display and the colour ways you’ve chosen. Everything should be clear and provide a good level of contrast. Content shouldn’t be needlessly long or complicated. Sentences should be concise and content shouldn’t move unexpectedly. The focus here is comprehension and legibility.
Navigation is next. This should be consistent and contain clear and simple cues as to where the user needs to go next. Images should contain text alternatives and pages should re-size properly.
Simplicity speaks volumes.
But this isn’t a nice to have. This is the law for Public Sector websites. In 2019, The Government set out the need for a digital service to meet the AA level of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCACG 2.1)
To meet government accessibility requirements, digital services must:
If this all feels like a minefield, call us. We’d love to help.