5 top tips to improve the accessibility of your website

Tomorrow, Thursday 16 May will be Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)!

The aim of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access and inclusion. It’s held every year on the third Thursday of May.

At the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), we’ve recently refreshed our brand and rolled out a new website designed to meet modern accessibility standards.

Last year the Digital Product team within JRF also carried out the same process and launched a new website for our subsidiary the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT).

We are proud to have been recognised as having one of the top UK charity websites for accessibility and that JRHT sits in the same position within the housing sector.

Digital accessibility is focused on specific accommodations for disability. The goal of accessibility is to create products, services and environments that are usable by people with disabilities.

Priorities

We realised that to make progress towards our mission, we needed to embrace accessibility as a core principle and that this was required to create the best user experience for everyone. Over the last 5 years our priorities have been to:

• raise awareness and knowledge of accessibility with colleagues and stakeholders through an internal accessibility working group within JRF and JRHT
• integrate accessibility at each phase of our product lifecycle
• audit our website products frequently to ensure any changes continue to be usable by people with disabilities

5 top tips

Improving accessibility is important because it removes barriers from people engaging with your work.

Since we went live with the refreshed JRF brand, many of our peers have been in touch and asked what they can be doing to make their own websites more accessible. These are our top tips:

1. Use good colour contrast

Colour contrast is the difference in brightness between the foreground and background colours. Good colour contrast makes sure everyone can access your content. Aim for a 4.5:1 ratio for normal text and a ratio of 3:1 for large text.

There are several tools you can use to assess your website for colour contrast accessibility:

• WebAIM: Contrast Checker
• Monsido Colour Contrast Checker
• Web Accessibility Colour Contrast Checker

2. Write in plain English

Plain language is accessible language. By writing using plain English, you open up your content so it can be understood quickly, by the most amount of people. Aim to keep your content clear, concise, and quick to comprehend.

You can read the research that shows how people with higher literacy prefer plain English.

3. Break up content with headings

Headings and sub-headings are used to structure your content. Individuals who are blind or visually impaired often choose to browse a webpage by headings. A good heading structure helps people orientate themselves within your content quickly.

By using headings, you are:

• making it easier for people to scan for key information
• organising your content so it’s less overwhelming to read

4. Write clear and descriptive link text

No more “click here”. Using vague and uninformative language can be confusing when read out of context. By writing descriptive link text that clearly and accurately describes the website or resource your link leads to, you are helping people understand the purpose of the link.

Examples of clear link text:

• Guidance on making a successful funding application
• Read our privacy notice

Examples of unclear link text:

• For information about accessing funding, click here to read this blog by Zara Davidson
• Read our privacy notice at https://www.jrf.org.uk/privacy

5. Publish information on the webpage (HTML)

HTML is a good basis for accessibility. Because HTML was designed to be displayed in a web browser and can be presented in different ways, it is a great fit for people who use assistive technology. All content being published online should be published as a webpage.

You can read the research that shows document formats like PDF are difficult for on-screen reading.

If a PDF or Word document is necessary, make sure these documents are designed to meet accessibility standards. Business Disability Forum provide several guides you can use to optimise documents for accessibility:

• Creating accessible PDFs
• Making Microsoft Word documents accessible
• Making PowerPoint presentations accessible
• Making Excel spreadsheets accessible

Conclusion

If you can focus on clear formatting, clear structure, and presenting web content in a web-native format we believe you’ll be making big strides towards a more accessible website.

What’s next at JRF

We believe we’ve made a great start at JRF and JRHT, but there’s still plenty to do; accessibility is seemingly never done. This year we plan to look at our content operations afresh and ensure there’s a reliable proactive process that allows us to review and audit the accessibility of our content.

If you have any feedback on this article, please use the comments section.