Designing a website is no easy task. You need skills in design, coding, art, and usability, as well as the know-how to host and support your website.
But that's not all. You also need to ensure that your website can be used by differently abled people. That means optimizing your website for those with impaired vision, hearing, cognitive functions, and much, much more.
In this post, we'll cover the importance of web accessibility and how you can implement it quickly and reliably using Sprucely Designed's web accessibility package.
What is web accessibility?
First, let's get a better understanding of what web accessibility is. In its simplest form, web accessibility just means making sure that people with disabilities can still use your website. For instance, someone who is blind might need a screen reader to navigate your website, while an epileptic person might need to disable animations and videos.
Of course, there are far more disabilities out there, as well as variations in how a disability might affect a person. Even if two people have the same disability, they might still rely on different accessibility tools to navigate your website.
Not only does web accessibility benefit an important cross-section of your users, but it's also mandatory. In fact, there's been a handful of cases in this year alone proving that websites need to prioritize their accessibility.
The importance of web accessibility compliance
While there are several reasons to invest in your website's accessibility, two stand out.
The first is obvious: Your users! Accessibility is an important part of reaching all of your users and customers where they're at. No one deserves to be left behind, and your commitment to accessibility is a great way to uphold this value.
The second answer is there in case you don't notice the first reason, and that's web accessibility compliance. The ADA has guidelines for how to make your website accessible, and though this isn't explicitly mandated by the U.S. government yet, court cases frequently end with the outcome of requiring websites to implement web accessibility.
In short, do it because it's the right thing and because it's the required thing.
Web Accessibility Automated Remediation from Sprucely Designed
To help you provide the best possible service to your users, we offer the Web Accessibility Automated Remediation package.
Sound like a mouthful?
While the title isn't so simple, the product itself is straightforward. It's a set of tools, features, and services that you can instantly incorporate into your website to bring your accessibility up to snuff. It was built with the latest ADA requirements in mind, so you not only provide your users with a great experience, but you also don't have to worry about any legal oversights.
9 key features of our web accessibility package
Speaking of those features, let's take a moment to explore what they are. After all, this is what your users are going to be interacting with on a daily basis.
1. Virtual keyboard
One of the basic features of any accessibility service is a virtual keyboard. A virtual keyboard is an onscreen keyboard that your users can interact with without needing to physically type on a keyboard.
This is important for users who have restricted use of their hands or need keys read out to them as they type. It enables users to fill out forms, contact you, and more.
2. Screen readers
For visually impaired and blind users, navigating the internet poses a serious challenge. It also poses a serious challenge for developers, who have to take on an additional hat when designing features for this user base.
Fortunately, there exists a product that makes it easy for you and your team to bring your service to these users: Screen readers. Screen readers are products that visually impaired users can purchase and use to read out the different elements and features on your website.
To enable these readers to work on your website, however, you need installed compatibility for the different types of readers out there. Our website accessibility package includes compatibility for the JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack screen readers, which are the most widely-used readers available.
3. Online dictionary
A less apparent challenge for some differently abled people is trouble understanding or remembering phrases and words. This can be caused by cognitive impairment, making it difficult for users to navigate your site and understand what they're viewing.
To help, our web accessibility product comes with an online dictionary. This dictionary allows anyone using your website to instantly discover the meaning of phrases, abbreviations, concepts, and terms across your site.
Like most features in this package, the online dictionary is customizable, so you can add terms to it that are unique to your website's experience.
4. Quick navigation
For various reasons, people with different abilities might find it difficult to navigate through your website. It might be that UX decisions aren't as clear due to cognitive impairment, or it could be that the placement of buttons and menus isn't easily reachable.
For these situations, our package includes a quick navigation tool. This tool makes it easy to access the most important pages on your website with a single click. That way, users can always find their place without confusion or difficulty.
5. Stop animations
For those with epilepsy, seemingly harmless aspects of your website can become a serious problem. Animations, transitions, videos, and sounds can all trigger an epileptic episode, which can be life-threatening.
To mitigate this risk, our accessibility package includes features to stop all currently playing animations at a moment's notice. This includes general animations from across your website, as well as GIFs, videos, flashing images, slides, and more.
6. Epilepsy safe
In addition to offering an emergency stop-animations button, our package also includes an epilepsy profile. This profile (which you can customize from the backend) modifies various aspects of your website across your webpages.
These modifications are designed to reduce the risk of an epileptic episode caused by content on your website. This includes:
- Reducing or eliminating animations
- Removing flashing lights
- Changing colors (especially those with sharp contrast)
- Modifying any elements that blink or stutter during use.
7. ADHD friendly
For those with ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disorders, your website can be a surprisingly difficult thing to navigate. Elements that are easily ignored or overlooked by the average user can become distracting, overwhelming, or frustrating for individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities.
To help, our product includes a profile for ADHD and neurodevelopmental disorders. This profile streamlines your website's design to its most simplistic elements. It also includes features that make your website content easier to read and browse.
8. Profiles for autism, dyslexia, and more
In addition to the profiles mentioned above, our package includes profiles for:
- Autism
- Dyslexia
- Visually impaired
- Motor impaired
- And more
This creates a customized experience for all of your users' potential needs.
9. 12 built-in languages
While the accessibility features in our product were designed to meet requirements in the U.S., these types of features are important to users all across the world. That's why it includes twelve built-in languages from some of the most requested countries:
- English
- Spanish
- Dutch
- French
- Japanese
- Chinese
- And six others
This not only allows companies based in other countries to take advantage of this accessibility product, but it also allows you to create different local versions of your website without compromising the experience for differently abled users.
The benefits of our web accessibility package
Alongside all of these features for your users, you also get several benefits when you implement our package into your website, starting with a great price.
Simple and affordable
Our web package starts at $490/year (just $40/month) and can be upgraded to four different tiers. To keep things simple, there's no difference in features at any of the tiers. You don't miss out on anything when you opt for the starting package.
Instead, you only pay more depending on the size of your website. For sites under 1,000 web pages, $490/year is all you'll ever have to pay.
Plus, you get everything you need to offer robust accessibility to your clients in a simple, all-in-one package.
ADA, WCAG 2.1 Level AA, & Section 508 compliance
While the ADA's web accessibility guidelines are the most widely known, they're not the only guidelines out there. The WCAG and U.S. government have their own requirements and expectations for websites to maintain when it comes to accessibility.
Our web accessibility package was built with all of these in mind. By purchasing one product, you meet the requirements for each of these guidelines instantly.
Additionally, when you subscribe to this package year after year, you get regular updates to maintain compliance with each of these standards. That means that as long as you use this service, you'll never have to worry about keeping your website compliant with the latest regulations.
A certification of performance
Having accessibility features is one thing, but making sure your users know they're there (and that they can trust those features) is an entirely different thing. That's why our accessibility package comes with an accessibility statement and a certification of performance.
This adds to your credibility and shows your users that they can rely on the accessibility features you've implemented on your website. It also makes it easier for users to find those features, as it serves as a confirmation that they're there in the first place.
Ongoing maintenance for a seamless experience
In addition to all of the above benefits, you also get ongoing maintenance for the duration of your subscription to the service. This ensures that your features never go down, break, or fail your users.
This maintenance is backed by a recurring scan of your website every 24 hours. This scan checks for any issues that might occur or have already occurred to minimize the impact of errors as much as possible.
By taking advantage of ongoing maintenance, you can save big on your accessibility features in the long-run. There's no need to hire a maintenance team, pay for failures, or downtime caused by broken features.
How to implement our web accessibility package into your website
If you're not the most tech-savvy, then you might be thinking that this sounds like a lot. How are you supposed to install this package, modify all of the settings, and get it to seamlessly fit into your existing website?
You're not! That's what Sprucely Designed is here for. We have years of experience in building, designing, and modifying websites. When you purchase our web accessibility package, you get an included installation process from start to finish.
Our team will not only install this package on your website but also customize it to match your branding. That way, there's no line where your website ends and its accessibility begins.
Ready to make your website accessible? Get 15% off today
If this sounds like the tool for you, you can read more about it here on the official product page.
And for a limited time launch special, you can get 15% off your first year when you use the code "MAKEITACCESSIBLE" before February 28th.
