3 Tips for Self-Checking Website Accessibility from accessiBe

The ADA act was first passed in 1990 and was created to make the world more accessible for people suffering from disabilities. It has changed the lives of many people with disabilities for the better, but since websites were still a novelty back then, they weren’t accounted for. This all changed when the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines were introduced.

Now, website owners could face legal action for not having an accessible website, and the scary part is that a lot of people are completely unaware of these regulations and what they can do to be compliant. Let’s take a look at what the experts at accessiBe have to say on how you can self-check your website for accessibility.

Check How Keyboard Friendly Your Site Is

This part is very important since many people are simply unable to use a mouse. They might use a keyboard or some sort of emulator instead. So, you will have to make sure that every control, feature, and link on your website can be accessed with a keyboard.

While this may sound difficult to do on your own, it can be facilitated by using the right tool. accessiBe, for instance, only requires that you install a single line of code for it to start checking your site for accessibility and making the proper corrections using AI. The tool has been getting glowing reviews since it was released with many stating how easy it was to implement and how it freed them of the stress of constantly having to check for compliance.

Check Your Video Content

If you have video content on your website, you have to make sure that it’s accessible as well. Closed captions and transcripts are very important for accessibility and you have to make sure that everything is in order if you don’t want to violate accessibility rules.

Checking those is easy. If you don’t have too much video content on your website, there should be a button on the video to turn on the captions. Then, review them to see if they’re accurate. If you can’t see any transcripts or they’re wrong, you will need to correct them. 

There are also cases where the video player you’re using is the issue. If this is the case, you have to make sure that it supports transcripts and captions, but also that it’s operable with nothing but a keyboard. Another thing you have to make sure of is that it doesn’t start videos as soon as a page loads as it can interfere with assistive technology.

Check at Different Screen Ratios

It’s also very important that you can zoom the screen in and out without losing any quality and visibility. According to the WCAG, the screen should be able to be zoomed up to 200% without using assistive technology and interfering with other accessibility requirements. The easy way to check is to simply zoom the page and see if the aspect remains similar or if elements start moving or disappearing unexpectedly.

These are all things that you can do today to test your site’s accessibility. They are all simple and don’t require outside help, so try them today if you want to reduce the chance of facing sanctions and improve the user experience for all.