In the digital age, websites are often the first interaction that businesses and their customers have. They are also a company’s online presence – making them essential to a business’s success in this digital age. With the ability to grow your business at your fingertips, websites are an excellent way to generate new leads and drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar locations. But how can you be sure that visitors with disabilities can see, understand, many companies make the mistake and navigate your site? The answer is web accessibility. In this blog post, we’ll cover why web accessibility matters, why you should care about it as a business owner, what it means for your website visitors with disabilities (CVED), and how you can implement these principles in your own website.
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Why Web Accessibility Matters
In the U.S., approximately 20% of the population has a disability, and this number is expected to rise as aging populations grow. This means that one in five people will likely have some sort of disability that prevents full access to the internet. While many businesses have taken great strides to meet the needs of their disabled customers, many have not. In fact, a study found that just 57% of businesses believe that web accessibility is important. The numbers alone show that businesses that don’t prioritize web accessibility risk losing a huge portion of the population. Disability is often a hidden barrier, meaning that people with disabilities may not realize that they cannot access a website until they’ve tried and failed.
Why Web Accessibility Matters to Businesses?
Additional research shows that businesses with highly accessible websites make more money. In fact, a recent study found that businesses with highly accessible websites have a 32% higher conversion rate than those without. This is likely due to the high percentage (83%) of consumers who say that website accessibility is an important factor in their purchasing decisions. These high numbers reveal just how important it is for businesses to prioritize web accessibility. However, many companies make the mistake of assuming that because their website works for some people, it works for everyone. This assumption is simply not true, and it can seriously hurt business growth.
CVED: People with Disabilities
The most obvious group of people who will be negatively impacted by poorly crafted websites are those with disabilities. However, a word of caution: just because someone has a disability does not mean they will experience difficulty using all websites. Depending on which disability the individual may have, they may be able to fully access certain websites or they may only have partial access to certain websites. People with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, speech-to-text difficulty, mobility disabilities, cognitive disabilities, and neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, have all been shown to negatively impact website access.
Website Visitors with Vision Impairments
Though there are many different types of vision disabilities, such as low vision, color blindness, or poor eyesight, most people with vision impairments will experience difficulty reading small font sizes and on-screen clutter. People with vision impairments often prefer larger font sizes, which can be easily achieved by increasing the font size in your site’s CSS code. You can also use a tool such as font-size-reader to generate and insert the code for you.
Website Visitors with Hearing Loss
Some people with hearing loss experience difficulty with volume control and background noise. To avoid this issue, you can install a website captioning service, like the one provided by Speech to Text. You can also choose to include a transcript of your website, which can be added to your page by either writing it yourself or purchasing an automated transcript from a software vendor. There are also many auditory techniques that you can use to make your website more accessible for people with hearing loss. These include: – Making sure your phone number and address are easy to read – Not having overly loud music playing on your website – Keeping sound effects and auditory information to a minimum
Website Visitors with Speech-to-Text Difficulty
People who experience speech-to-text difficulty may be unable to read your website due to a variety of reasons, such as dyslexia, a learning disability, or a language barrier. These individuals often prefer to use alternative methods of communication, such as websites that offer sign language video, live captioning, or voice-to-text translation. You can make your site more accessible to people with speech-to-text difficulties by including an option to have your website translated into a different language. You can also install a live captioning service that will provide real-time captions of your site.
Website Visitors with Mobility Disabilities
People with mobility disabilities, such as those living with spinal cord injuries or arthritis, often have difficulty reaching and navigating a computer. This can make website navigation nearly impossible. You can make your website more accessible for people with mobility disabilities by keeping the navigation menu short, including a search bar on every page, and making your website as responsive as possible.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the most important thing is to make your website easily accessible for as many people as possible. The easiest way to do this is by making sure that you’re following universal design principles. This includes large font sizes, simple navigation, and a clutter-free page design. Following these principles will ensure that everyone will be able to read and understand your website, regardless of their physical or mental disabilities.
In the digital age, websites are often the first interaction that businesses and their customers have. They are also a company’s online presence – making them essential to a business’s success in this digital age. With the ability to grow your business at your fingertips, websites are an excellent way to generate new leads and drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar locations. But how can you be sure that visitors with disabilities can see, understand, and navigate your site? The answer is web accessibility. In this blog post, we’ll cover why web accessibility matters, why you should care about it as a business owner, what it means for your website visitors with disabilities, and how you can implement these principles in your own website.
