Five Ways to Improve Your Website’s Accessibility

Did you know that 19 percent of the population has a visual, auditory, physical or learning disability?

JPR Associate Ellen Lazer talked about website accessibility at the GMIS NJ Technology Education Conference. It just makes sense to correctly design and maintain your website so that users of all abilities and disabilities, including existing and potential clients and consumers, can access your information. Here are her tips:

1. Provide text equivalents for images to help blind users using speech software or Braille hardware.

2. Name links meaningfully. Rather than saying “click this,” provide specific information, such as “Click this link for our new calendar.”

3. Make your clickable links and areas large to help users who cannot control a mouse with precision.

4. Larger text makes web pages easier to read and and higher contrast makes them easier to see.

5. Provide captioning, a sign language version and/or a text transcript for videos for your deaf and hard-of-hearing users. The transcript also makes the audio information accessible to search engines, which do not hear.