What is Web Accessibility and Why is it Important?

Web accessibility refers to the inclusive practice of ensuring that websites and web applications are usable by everyone, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. This involves designing and developing digital content that is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for all users, including those with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive impairments. By adhering to web accessibility standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), creators can make the web a more inclusive space, enabling equal access to information and functionality for all users.

Ensuring web accessibility is crucial not only from an ethical standpoint but also from a legal and business perspective. Many countries have enacted laws requiring digital accessibility, and non-compliance can lead to legal repercussions. Moreover, accessible websites enhance the user experience for everyone, including people with temporary impairments or those using mobile devices in challenging environments. By prioritizing accessibility, businesses can reach a broader audience, improve customer satisfaction, and foster a positive brand image that values inclusivity and diversity. The work that goes into achieving web accessibility can lead to higher search rankings on Google as the result is often a faster, more usable website that works well on devices of all sizes.


How Do We Assist with your Web Compliance?

As of June, 2024, we’ve gone through each page of each of our templates and made significant accessibility updates including, but not limited to:

  • Providing descriptive titles for pages
  • Ensuring that each page is displayed correctly on small devices mobile devices (down to 320px width)
  • Using HTML headings in descending order as required
  • Providing descriptions for non-text content such as buttons, input fields, etc. so that screen readers can communicate this information to the visually impaired
  • Ensuring proper font sizing
  • Providing descriptive titles for stock images
  • Ensuring that required fields are marked, form fields are labelled, and form validations and error messages are useful
  • Ensuring that decorative elements and icons are hidden from screen readers
  • Ensuring that every page can be navigated and, in the case of forms, filled in, via keyboard
  • Ensuring that all accessibility upgrades have also been applied to the Client Portal on your website
  • Adding an accessibility widget that is capable of ensuring that contrast requirements are met when the high contrast button is activated

These are just a few of the dozens of changes that have been made to support the accessibility of your website.


How You Can Improve the Accessibility of Your Website?

We’ve updated our platform so that when you upload an image where an image description is required, you’ll be prompted for a description. If you have any pages where you’ve uploaded images prior to June, 2024, please:

  1. Test the page for accessibility with accessiBe’s free tool (https://accessibe.com/accessscan)
  2. Where the scan indicates that you’re missing a description on an image, please re-upload the image within the website setup wizard and you’ll be prompted for a description where required

Please note that Accessibe is an A.I. based accessibility solution and its testing platform can produce false negatives. We've gone to great lengths to document, investigate, and rule out any false positives that it produces for any of our templated pages.


What Tips Should You Consider as You Maintain Your Website’s Accessibility?

  • As you upload photos to our platform, be descriptive when providing image descriptions
  • Where an image contains a lot of information, such as instructions, consider adding this information as text rather than using an image
  • When adding hyperlinks to your website, ensure that the link encompasses text that explains what the link is for or where it will take the user
  • Don’t use images as buttons
  • When using headings, use 'heading 2' tags for primary headings and 'heading 3' tags for subheadings. These can be selected from the text editor menu using the icon in the top left of the toolbar. If you find that these headings are too large, you can reduce the font size of them. The use of headings in this descending order gives screen readers better context. 'heading 1' headings are baked into our templates and appear at the top of most pages.
  • After adding content to your website, use accessiBe’s free scan tool to determine if you’ve introduced any new issues (https://accessibe.com/accessscan)


If you have any questions on your website's accessibility, please reach out to our support group.