WordPress powers a significant portion of websites today, with over 43% of sites relying on it. Unfortunately, many of these websites fail to meet ADA accessibility standards, creating major hurdles for visually impaired users. As a WordPress website owner, it’s essential to prioritize accessibility, ensuring your site is usable by everyone, including those with visual impairments.
The Importance of Visual Accessibility
Visual accessibility ensures that individuals with visual impairments can perceive and understand the information presented on your website. This encompasses people with low vision, impaired eyesight, and various forms of color blindness.
By addressing visual challenges, web accessibility enhances the browsing experience for users with visual impairments, making it more productive and less frustrating. An accessible website, with features such as audio descriptions, appropriate image descriptions, and adjustable font sizes, empowers users who rely on assistive technologies to fully engage with your content.
Furthermore, beyond capturing a wider audience, accessibility is often a legal requirement. The Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities and mandates that websites adapt their resources to meet their needs. The WCAG provides guidelines for website accessibility, emphasizing that sites should be perceivable, operable, robust, and understandable. WCAG 2.2 offers a detailed list of recommendations. For instance, to support visually impaired users, WCAG guidelines require a contrast ratio of 4.5:1 to improve visual accessibility.
Ten Ways to Make WordPress More Accessible
Keeping the above in mind, here are some guidelines to improve your WordPress website’s accessibility for visually impaired users. We’ll start with the method that addresses the topic most effectively.
1. Test Your Website for Accessibility
Step 1: Regularly test your website’s accessibility to identify and address any issues.
Step 2: Utilize web accessibility evaluation tools and resources to pinpoint errors and areas for improvement. For example, consider using a free plugin that incorporates A11Y auditing features.
Step 3: Conduct manual testing by zooming in and out, navigating using only the keyboard, adjusting font sizes and colors, and testing on various devices.
Step 4: Gather feedback from real users, especially those with visual impairments, to identify areas where improvements can be made.
2. Use Accessible Code
Step 1: Employ semantic HTML to define the role and meaning of your web content and multimedia elements. This involves using appropriate tags such as <h1> to <h6> for headings, <p> for paragraphs, and <ol> for lists.
Step 2: Through semantic HTML, screen readers, search engines, and browsers can effectively understand and navigate your website.
Step 3: Use clear and concise language. Avoid jargon, idioms, slang, and complex sentences.
Step 4: Use headings, subheadings, paragraphs, and lists to organize your content.
Step 5: Explain acronyms and technical terms when first introduced, or provide a glossary.
Step 6: Implement ARIA landmarks to provide information and context about elements to screen readers and assistive technology. ARIA landmarks define regions such as application, complementary, banner, form, navigation, main, search, and contentinfo.
Step 7: Add descriptive alt text to images. This allows assistive technologies to convey the image’s content to visually impaired users.
Step 8: Use heading tags (<h1>, <h2>, etc.) to create a clear hierarchy and structure within your content, enabling easier navigation. Maintain consistent heading styles throughout your website.
Step 9: Ensure that online forms are accessible by using accessible form plugins, enabling keyboard navigation, labeling text fields descriptively, and providing clear error messages. Form instructions should be concise, and the form should be fully keyboard-operable.
Step 10: Implement skip links to allow users to bypass redundant navigation elements and directly access the main content of the page.
3. Use an Accessible WordPress Theme
Step 1: Choose a theme specifically designed for accessibility. These themes are built with features that support screen readers and other assistive technologies.
Step 2: Look for themes that have been tested against accessibility guidelines and include features like accessible menus, high color contrast, and semantic code.
4. Make WordPress Navigation Accessible
Step 1: Ensure your website is navigable using arrow keys and the Tab key.
Step 2: Support alternative input methods like single-switch input and mouth sticks.
5. Choose Accessible Colors
Step 1: Be mindful of color contrast and color ratios.
Step 2: Use a contrast testing tool (often available in web browser developer tools) to verify that your color combinations meet accessibility standards. WCAG recommends a 4.5:1 contrast ratio for body text.
6. Look for Accessible Fonts
Step 1: Provide an alternative stylesheet that allows users to enlarge fonts without disrupting the page layout.
Step 2: Choose fonts with high readability, such as common system fonts (Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman) or specialized fonts like OpenDyslexic.
7. Add Captions for Multimedia Content
Step 1: Provide captions for all video and audio content. Captions should accurately describe spoken words, actions, and sounds.
Step 2: If you host content on your WordPress site, use the platform’s features to upload text tracks. If you embed videos from platforms like YouTube, add subtitles through the hosting platform’s tools.
8. Make Your Content Accessible
Step 1: Maintain comfortable reading lengths by limiting lines to 45-75 characters.
Step 2: Use descriptive anchor text for links, providing context to visually impaired users. Avoid generic anchor texts like “Click Here” or “Read More”.
Step 3: Provide transcripts for audio and video content. Transcripts should be accurate, complete, and clear.
9. Provide Audio Descriptions for Videos
Step 1: Create separate audio tracks that describe the visual elements in videos, including the environment, clothing, gestures, and actions.
Step 2: Add these audio descriptions during gaps in speech. You can add a secondary audio block or utilize a plugin to add an audio alternative.
10. Don’t Use Auto-Playing Videos
Step 1: Avoid using auto-playing videos, as they can interfere with screen readers and cause confusion. Ensure that users can manually start and stop videos.
By implementing these strategies, you can create a more inclusive web experience, ensuring your WordPress website is accessible to as many people as possible.