Designing an accessible website involves creating a digital experience that everyone can use, regardless of their abilities. These five graphic design tricks address common barriers and offer practical solutions to make your website inclusive.
Select Easy-to-Read Fonts
Decorative or overly stylized fonts can be challenging to read, especially for users with dyslexia or low vision. They diminish readability and accessibility, making it harder for users to consume content efficiently.
To remedy this, use simple, sans-serif fonts like Arial, Verdana, or Roboto for body text, and reserve decorative fonts for headings or logos. For instance, you can use Arial for the main text and a decorative font like Pacifico for the logo to maintain a balanced design.
Provide Sufficient Contrast
Low contrast between text and background colors affects readability. This can create challenges for users with low vision or color blindness, as they may struggle to distinguish text from its background. To address this, ensure a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for regular text and 3:1 for large text.
Tools like the WebAIM Contrast Checker or the Adobe Color Analyzer can help you verify your design choices.
One simple way to avoid this issue is to use high contrast between the background and font color. For example, instead of light gray text on a white background, use black text on a white or light-yellow background for better readability.
Design for Keyboard Navigation
Users relying on keyboards can’t interact effectively with poorly designed interfaces. Missing focus states or inaccessible navigation can prevent users with motor disabilities from navigating your site successfully.
To fix this, ensure all interactive elements are focusable and have visible focus indicators, such as outlines or color changes.
For example, use a bold dual-color outline for focus indicators that contrast with the background. On a white background, black and white outlines work well. Black for standard focus visibility and white to ensure contrast if a darker element overlaps the focused item. This approach ensures the selected item is always clearly indicated.
- Avoid Overloading Pages with Animations
Flashy or constant animations can cause distractions or even trigger conditions like seizures. This poses challenges for users with cognitive disabilities or photo sensitivity, as they may struggle with excessive motion. To address this, use animations sparingly and provide a “reduce motion” option for users who need it.
Additionally, avoid flashing content that blinks more than three times per second. For example, replace a fast-blinking banner with a slow fade-in animation to minimize strain.
Include Descriptive Alternative Text for Images
Without alternative text, screen readers cannot convey the meaning of images to visually impaired users. This makes important visual content inaccessible and may leave some users without necessary context.
To address this, write concise alt text that describes the image’s purpose or content. For purely decorative images, leave the alt text empty but not null to ensure they are skipped by screen readers.
For example, for an image of a cat lounging on a couch, you could use: “A gray tabby cat sleeping on a blue couch.”
By applying these five simple and standard graphic design tricks, you can remove common barriers and ensure your site is inclusive for all users, regardless of their abilities.
Even small changes like adding alt text, using high-contrast colors, or designing clear focus indicators can make a significant impact.
Building an accessible website isn’t just about meeting compliance standards, it’s about creating a better experience for everyone.
Reach out to learn more about using our Allyant testing tools in real-time, while your design, development and content management teams are building new web content!
