Top 4 Methods To Blend Accessibility In Your Drupal Digital Strategy

Website accessibility refers to building a website accessible for all. It is about giving all users access to the same information, regardless of their impairments. Over the years, web technology has evolved to great heights to support print, audio, and visual media. According to the CDC Stats, 61 million adults in the United States live with a disability. Therefore, the website owners and other responsible persons must create content that is accessible to everyone. The best approach is to start building it right from scratch...

Accessibility as part of your digital strategy

The future of effective digital marketing must include accessibility. It is easy to implement in the initial days rather than trying to accommodate it after the launch. Let your digital strategy take into account that accessibility increases usability, which starts driving more traffic to your website and landing pages. There are a few things that you will have to consider when creating your site content; they are:

• Ordered headings
• Right contrast of colors on the pages
• Language considerations if required
• Descriptive alt text
• Site responsiveness

Defining user personas for accessible UX and measuring accomplishments

Incorporating accessibility to your website isn't a customary action; however, it should be completed after recognizing your boundaries and requirements. The best way to get it done is by investigating your key performance indicators (KPIs) and understanding the point, whether it is for a legal purpose or demographic benefit.

Your checklist should include:

• Page load speed insights
• Finding missing image Alt Text and attributes
• Finding out Level A success criteria violations
• Finding out Level AA success criteria violations

Later, you may try finding out your user personas. Create comprehensive personas that have restrictions and disabilities. Also, consider capturing details such as temporary disability, slow internet connection, or colorblindness.

Rally your team

It is vital to keep your team on the same page to display prompt accessibility on every page of your website. Let the team be kept updated on the what, why, and how to get better mileage from the task. Unless there is transparency and proper communication, the desired goal remains unattainable.

Visual Disabilities Accommodation

Most of us know what alt text is, but only a few are aware of how the alt text needs to be applied. The W3 images tutorial provides appropriate text alternatives based on the image's purpose - you can use it to get a clear understanding. You can also use the contrast checker to make sure the text is legible.

Hearing Impairments Accommodation

There are numerous video transcripts that you can include with video and audio to make media more accessible.

• Basic transcripts are a text version of the speech and non-speech audio information. It is needed to understand the content.
• Descriptive transcripts contain visual information that is required by people who are deaf-blind and others.
• Interactive transcripts refer to intuitive tools for media consumption. It should not be confused with captions.

SEO Benefit

Reaching people with a disability isn't the only benefit. It also paves the way to building accessibility into your digital strategy. Besides, your website also gets the SEO benefit. Alt text, alt text tags with accessibility in mind will set you up for good SEO practices. The response received from the online visitors also impacts the overall SEO performance. Building an accessible site means it will lower the bounce rates to improve the overall site performance. In other words, by making an accessibility-friendly website, you are better optimized for search engines. Therefore, alongside SEO, let accessibility be given equal importance while developing your website.

Wrapping Up

The best sites are built on Drupal, and to be more profitable and robustly growing, you'll need to incorporate and closely adhere to the points mentioned above. Accessibility cannot be ignored and has to be implemented right from the ground. If you are building a site or already have one which is not accessibility compliant, reach out to us, our experts will help you the way you want it to be approached. The first free 30 minutes session will enlighten you on what needs to be undertaken.