How Will You Improve Accessibility of Your WordPress Site?

If you want to sustain in the world of progress, it is important for you to keep upgrading. Well, this also includes the ‘www’. Anyone who has a website needs to think about its accessibility. Whenever you have to design an effective website you need to consider the techniques, skill as well as testing. Designing an effective website requires a lot of techniques, skills and testing. Testing is for determining the WordPress website’s usability.

However, it is closely associated with the accessibility of the website. Therefore, if you have a website, you need to think about its accessibility. So, how do you define accessibility of a website? To define accessibility of your WordPress website, I would say that it is nothing but making your website conveniently viewable to users.

The ability and disability of a person will not determine whether your website is accessible or not. Imagine a blind person being able to easily surf through your website and access the contents. Accessibility, in simple terms means giving every user equal opportunity to browse your website regardless of the technological limitations. Let us take a look at how to improve the accessibility of your WordPress site.

1. Consistent Layout and Structure You might often fall prey for amazing templates and themes ; and wish you could use all the themes on your website. However, it is important that your website maintains a consistent layout in order to improve the accessibility of your website. You need to have the sidebar, navigation panel and headers consistent across all the pages of your website.
2. Add Alt Text for Images Alt Text is nothing but an alternative to image or picture – same like a small description describing the image. For example, if you have a picture of a your pet cat who is jet black, your Alt Text should say “My Black Pet Cat”. Those people who use screen readers because of vision problem, will be which are used by people who have vision problems, will use this text to read out what is in the picture. However, unlike the title attribute, the user does not have to include the alt attribute and many WordPress users will just ignore it.
3. Use Headings Correctly It is important to use headings for all the WebPages. They give your website a semantic structuring. A website normally has a tag to set its main title. However, the more important aspect is to use the headings correctly. Follow the rules given below to ensure your headings are correct. They are:
   

• Use only 1 H1 on each page.
  
• The H1 content is nothing but a title of the page.
  
• Use headings in a sequence of H1 – H6.
  
• Don’t skip headings going down.
  
• HTML5 allows you to use more Headings than H1.

   

1. Make meaningful Link Content many technologies that are assistive usually show link on separate page. Suppose if you have a page with links like “click here”, “read more” or something like that on a page of assistive technology, it will not be very comprehensive. It might not make your WordPress website easily accessible. Consider this: Although your link text is out of context, it should still be relevant and meaningful. Don’t use “click here” or “read more”. They irritate the visitors. Make sure that you avoid using URL for link text. Ensure that the link on every page is unique to the page.
   
2. The Three Tier and Progressive Enhancement There is something called as a three tier approach in web designing, which separates content, style and behavior successfully. These three tiers that enhance the progressiveness of the website, ensuring that every user can access the website data without any hassles.
   
3. Test Although you may have followed these tips to make your WordPress website more accessible, it is necessary you test your website through methods. Check if your website can be navigated through keyboard. Check your website without CSS Check for contrasts Check if your website runs in different browsers. Understand the color specific instructions and language Check the structure of your website headings
   

On a Concluding Note…

When you talk of making your Word Press site accessible, it all about the themes. You will find some of the themes that better than other. It totally depends on the website owner, as to which theme fits the websites accessibility.

Jack Sutton works with VITEB – a wordpress development company based in London. His passion for upgrading his knowledge puts him to research on topics relevant to his industry. Besides, he also likes to share his findings by writing about them in his free time. Read some of his bestsellers on different guest blogging platforms.