Digital accessibility: what should you consider as a website designer?
Digital accessibility is unfortunately something that most projects don't even consider until afterwards. Often, this is too late. But you really save a lot of time, money and frustration as a website designer if you consider website accessibility from the very beginning.
Digital accessibility is a task of the whole team
Websites get a whole lot better when website designers, builders and project leaders are all involved in the digital accessibility of the project. By thinking about accessibility early in the project, websites become a lot more user-friendly for everyone. The big advantage: the user experience goes up, you have more satisfied visitors and conversion rates increase.
Projectleiders, product owners en accountmanagers
Already during the first contact with the client, you digital accessibility discuss. What are the client's wishes and expectations? Should the website meet all the success criteria of the WCAG right from delivery? And what role does the client play in the accessibility of the content, for example? A Awareness Meeting Digital Accessibility helps if the client is still completely new to the subject.
Website designers in UX'ers
As a website designer or UX designer, you obviously don't just want a "pretty picture". You also want a website that is successful and that helps your client, for example, achieve additional sales or reach more customers.
When creating a unique web design, digital accessibility is also important. Accessible design is the foundation. That starts with an accessible colour palette. Digital accessibility should also be considered in the corporate identity. Thinking carefully about how different visitors use the new website will make your website a lot better for all users.
Tools such as Figma or Invision can help you with this. Don't forget to include instructions, tips and comments in your web design. That way the web builder knows where digital accessibility is especially important.
The video below shows how Figma's "Color Blind" plugin allows you to view your design with different variants of colour blindness. This way, you can be sure that no information is lost for visitors who are colour-blind. In the Netherlands, about 1 in 12 men is colour blind. Secretly quite a large group of users that you as a website designer can take into account.
Webbouwers, frontend en backend developers
The programmer then translates the accessible web design into neat and semantic code. Use standard HTML as much as possible. Be careful about coming up with "proprietary" elements. If you really have to, you can use WAI-ARIA to provide additional information to auxiliary software. Don't forget to check your code for errors. You can do that, for example, with the W3C Validator.
Digitally accessible web design
For UX designers and website designers, digital accessibility is an important issue. With good accessible design, you don't just look at an "average visitor" or a specific target group. It is important that your web design can be used by everyone.
It is therefore important to take into account specific needs and preferences of, for example, visitors with disabilities and elderly people already during the design phase.
A few tips you can already consider as a website designer when creating accessible web designs:
Describe digital accessibility
Please add comments to your design so that everyone on the project understands what you mean.Accessible colour palette
Before you start, see what colour combinations are possible. Colour contrast is especially important, but you can also consider visitors who are colour-blind.Different statuses for buttons and forms
Buttons, links and form fields have different statuses: default, hover, focus, active, disabled, etc. In accessible web design, already lay down how everything looks. From WCAG 2.2 onwards, there are stricter requirements for focus display.Describe the interaction of elements
For complex forms in particular, it is important to specify in the web design what the focus order is between different elements. For other interactive elements, specify in detail what should happen.Describe alternatives to complicated actions
If an action can be tricky for certain users, also describe an alternative action. For example, consider complex swipe gestures on mobile devices or drag & drop actions.Your user's preferences
Users can set their preferences on the computer. For example, for colour contrast, dark mode or restricting movements. You can recognise this with CSS or JavaScript and use it in your design.Talk to your team
Always discuss potential accessibility issues with everyone on your team too. Make sure the expectations are right from your client and that the developers know what to build.
Benefits of an accessible website designer
There are many advantages to considering digitally accessible web design as early as the design stage. By learning how visitors use your websites, your designs will get better piece by piece.
Surely the most important benefits of accessible web design are, in our opinion:
Better websites, more satisfied visitors
Digitally accessible websites are a lot more enjoyable for all visitors and better findable in Google.Better relationship with programmers
Because you describe your designs better, your fellow programmers will know better what to consider. This will make them really happy.Better relationship with your client
By talking about digital accessibility, you will think along with your client to come up with better solutions. Involve your client in this. This also creates new commercial opportunities.
Don't know where to start now? Our training Digital accessibility for UX designers will help you get started. During this introductory training course, you will work with a specialist to look at solutions that UX practitioners can use to improve their designs. The training is also interesting for SEO and CRO specialists who want to know more about digital accessibility.
