When building websites, mobile apps or software, organizations are often focused on designs, the visual impact or ensuring that the merchandise is optimized for all devices. As a result, digital accessibility is typically overlooked.
What is digital accessibility?
Digital accessibility is that the process of creating digital products (websites, mobile apps and other digital tools and technologies) accessible to everyone. It’s about providing all users access to an equivalent information, no matter the impairments they’ll have.
According to W3C (the organization who manages web standards), their goal for web accessibility is:
… to steer the online to its full potential to be accessible, enabling people with disabilities to participate equally on the online. The online must be accessible to supply equal access and civil rights to people with diverse abilities. Indeed, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes access to information and communications technologies, including the online, as a basic right.
The goal may be a web that everybody can participate in, since access to information and communication is, consistent with the UN, a basic right. A very simple way to understand accessibility is to consider “alt text on” images. These are how people that can’t see navigate around an internet site and understand an image is there. By providing relevant alt tags to all or any your images, you are doing a little part in making the online more accessible to people that can’t see.
So why is digital accessibility important? We live in a digital world where more and more products and services are getting digital. Organizations that neglect accessibility have to understand that they’re already losing customers and can still lose them. Plus, good usability improves the digital experience for all users (not only those with health conditions and disabilities).
Examples of Digital Accessibility Transformations
So what do these changes actually mean to organizations looking to be fully accessible?
Here are two samples of web accessibility transformation
The State of Georgia’s web transformation
About 8% of Georgia’s under 65 population is disabled, not to mention the very fact that its website was increasingly the way residents engaged with the government. It needed to be accessible. in order that they partnered with both academic and personal organizations to deliver a revamped web experience that met the online Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 (Level AA) outlined by the W3C.
They reviewed and glued the planning themes employed by the Georgia governments’ various agencies to make them more accessible. Specifically, they:
- Increased contrast and font legibility
- Improved semantic markup, to make it easier for blind people et al. using screen readers, improve search function, and make the whole site more SEO friendly for everybody.
- Improved keyboard-only navigation.
These changes made the location easier to use for everybody, made it easier to seek out what people were trying to find, and made critical content available to people that were previously under-served.
Legal & General Group (L&G)
This is an older example, but the tenet they utilized in 2006 still apply today and do a superb job of illustrating how accessibility needs can dovetail with business objectives.
In 2006, L&G began an internet accessibility project with the goal of passing a usability test where the participants were users with disabilities. To succeed in that objective, L&G redesigned their website, with specific attention being paid to usability testing, usability audit/heuristic analysis, and a deep understanding of the requirements of the prevailing underserved client base.
The outcome was sudden and dramatic. additionally to a site that passed accessibility standards and drove accessibility complaints right down to zero, the improved UX, reduced load times, and better schemas drove positive business metrics across the board:
- 25% more organic traffic
- Better position in SERPs
- 75% better load times
- 100% ROI achieved within 12 months.
Digital Products for All
Accessibility is about making your digital experiences available to any user and ensuring that the knowledge and communication that we all enjoy truly benefits everyone. Of course, there’s no one size fits all. There are multiple approaches to accessibility, from updating content to improving user flows to technically upgrading your website and apps to possess reduced running requirements. It’s a chance to enhance your website and repair for people that need it most, in a way that each one your users enjoy.
