Imagine you are throwing a huge party and it’s finally showtime. You planned it all out, you decorated and you hired a day-of coordinator to run the event so you can enjoy the party stress-free. When the coordinator gets there, you say “oh and make sure it’s accessible!”
Accessible? But the strobe lights are already flashing…
Accessible? But you booked a space upstairs and there’s no elevator…
In this scenario, the coordinator is like your web development team. And you’re a strategist, a designer, a client. Thinking that your dev team can handle accessibility on its own is a huge oversight that can lead to whole groups of people being excluded from the party.
The promise of the internet is that it’s available to everyone, hence the name “world wide web.” That’s the essence of digital accessibility. Around the world, there are over one billion people with a disability.
So how do you guarantee an accessible website for all of them?
At Bravoure, we firmly believe that accessibility (also known as A11Y) is not just a feature; it's a fundamental aspect that permeates every stage of our projects. A11Y isn't confined to the realms of development; it begins at the very core of our strategy sessions and extends its reach into branding, ensuring that every user is at the forefront of our design considerations.
Accessibility before development
Our journey towards creating inclusive digital experiences starts with our strategic team. We meticulously analyze user personas, ensuring that individuals with varying accessibility requirements are not just considered but prioritized. This then extends to the design team. In the branding phase, we carefully select color schemes that guarantee sufficient visual contrast on our websites, making sure text is legible to all users.
Test your own brand colors here: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
In the design of the website, we need to consider accessibility alternatives that don’t take away from the creative and visually engaging site we want to create. For example, if we want to have an auto-playing video, then we better have an option to serve a static image to users with “Prefers Reduced Motion” turned on. And if we have a large navigation in our header, we ought to have a “Skip to content” button so that keyboard users can jump past this repeated content on each page.
The essence of our commitment to accessibility comes to life during the UI/UX and development stages. Leveraging the power of HeadlessUI by Tailwind Labs, our chosen component library, we craft fully accessible UI components. From accordions to dropdowns and modals, every element should cover diverse user interactions, whether through mouse clicks or keyboard navigation or screen readers.
Client education: Content is the heart of accessibility
Accessibility isn't just about code; it's about the content too. A big part of making platforms accessible lies in the content provided by our clients. With the use of a CMS, alt text for images, captions for videos and clear link titles become the client’s responsibility to fill in.
That’s why we always give our clients the tools and know-how to make their content shine in the CMS. Alt text paints a picture for those who can’t see, captions and audio descriptions help everyone understand videos, and clear link titles act as signposts, especially when there’s not much context.
If the client fills in “Read more” for every link title, well… there’s not much a screen reader can do with that!
Conclusion: A collective endeavor
Hopefully this article has illustrated for you that accessibility isn’t just the responsibility of developers. Everyone on your team, from strategists to designers to the client, needs to be an A11Y to make this work. Accessibility must be thought of long before the development phase kicks off to be successful.
And if you don’t know where to start, just bring your developers to the table sooner. We should be well versed in WCAG guidelines and accessibility requirements and can help guide you towards a better process.
Let’s make sure everyone isn’t just invited to the party, but is truly welcome to join in the fun.