Accessibility is all about reducing barriers to information and digital experiences. While increasing accessibility to digital content is a legal obligation in many countries and regions, it also brings a host of strategic advantages that enhance the customer journey and their ability to connect with the brand. Making your web content accessible ensures everyone can benefit from your information, including those with visual, cognitive, speech, and neurological impairments. At Untitled10, we specialise in web design services that enhance user accessibility, allowing you to amplify your digital presence and achieve high-impact results. Let’s look at the fundamental concepts behind accessible UI/UX designs, current best practice guidelines, and how your web and mobile touchpoints can be optimised for maximum benefits.
Why Accessibility is Essential for Customer Satisfaction in Digital Design
With over five billion people globally connected to the internet, it becomes vital for businesses to adopt accessible UI/UX design principles. As accessibility is often associated with those having speech, auditory, physical or intellectual impairments, brands need to ensure their digital interfaces are usable by people with diverse abilities. Increasing accessibility is both an ethical and legal requirement.
Here are some reasons why accessibility is essential for customer satisfaction in digital design.
- Personalised Experiences – As businesses adopt universal designs, it is possible to provide personalised experiences based on user accessibility preferences. Many brands use language and colour toggles with access to text-to-audio features to ensure users can benefit from the information based on their preferences.
- Wider SEO Reach – Adding semantic code and alt text with images and content makes it easier for brands to reach wider audiences. The data collected on user interaction helps improve UI/UX while allowing brands to customise customer journeys for better business performance.
- Legal Requirements – The WCAG and ARIA frameworks require businesses to incorporate accessibility in their efforts for equal access to information. Adhering to these laws increases brand reputation and the scope of services that increase customer satisfaction.
- Customer Inclusivity – The ability of brands to make content accessible fosters a sense of inclusiveness amongst customers, irrespective of the barriers they face. It increases the ability of customers to benefit from the content.
Key Accessibility Guidelines to Follow for Inclusive UI/UX
Some frameworks that help develop inclusive UI/UX designs include Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA). Additional guidelines by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Rehabilitation Act, and the European Accessibility Act (EAA) require businesses to make online platforms and content accessible to those with medical illnesses or impairments.
The guidelines provide a roadmap for designers and software developers to ensure every element is intuitive, robust, inclusive, easy to navigate, and familiar to everyone. Here are some common guidelines to follow when designing inclusive UI/UX for users:
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- User Access – As a brand or digital developer, it is critical to ensure user accessibility is provided with or without assistance. It includes ensuring access to user content and information with or without screen readers, proximity switches, on-screen or adaptive keywords, input devices, emulators, and eye-tracking systems.
- Design Research – Research helps understand consumer requirements, perspectives, values, language, and cultural norms that might be key to clarity and understandability within the UI/UX design.
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- Ease of Navigation – While keyboards are the preferred navigation medium for many users, it is essential to incorporate assisted technologies, magnifiers, speech recognition, or screen readers to ensure content is intuitive and easy to use. Allowing users to adjust font size without losing functionality is equally important.
- Universal Design – The biggest differentiation for brands is unique design elements. However, brands can use custom web design services that follow a universal pattern that is easy to recognize and interact with despite the specialised elements.
- Operability and Robustness – Using alt text, semantic HTML, captions, colour contrast, extended limits, large target elements, clear language, instructions, and consistent UI patterns makes digital content operable and robust for users.
How to Implement Accessible Features in Your Website or App Design
Implementing accessible features in your website or app design can reduce barriers for your target audience. Imagine a customer with colour blindness who is unable to see vibrant colours. Neutral tones and giving options to high contrast themes are features you can apply to your web or mobile app design. The following steps can help you implement accessible features:
- Get familiar with the WCAG framework to implement the POUR principles within your design. WACG recommends accessible content to be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.
- Assess your accessibility score using automated tools like WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools to identify current deficiencies that need change.
- Make an accessibility plan by defining your goals and prioritizing features. Goals can include reducing barriers for those with speech or language deficiencies. Features may include text-to-speech software, a high-contrast theme, or increased font size to improve accessibility.
- Apply universal design principles, colour contrast theme guidelines, and responsive UI/UX to ensure consistent content across all devices.
- Ensure your design and content incorporate alt text, meta tags, plain language, and instructions across all elements.
- Implement ARIA attributes for dynamic content and complex UI components so assistive technology roles can be defined.
- Conduct usability audits and tests to ensure elements are easy to navigate, read, and understand.
- Maintain updates after deployment and incorporate changes based on WCAG guidelines and universal design principles.
The Business Benefits of Accessible Design: Building Brand Loyalty Through Inclusivity
Apart from saving your business from fines and penalties, an accessible design brings along many benefits that can increase your brand image and reputation through inclusivity. Here are some advantages of investing in accessible web design services:
- Increased Market Share – Improving accessibility improves your SEO reach and SERP ranking, making it easier for global customers to explore your product and services. This helps increase market share, profitability, and business growth beyond geographies.
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- Less Negative Backlash – Many businesses, such as Walmart, Amazon, Domino’s Pizza, and Nordstrom, have faced negative backlash for lack of web, digital, and mobile accessibility for customers with impairments. They all had to revamp their services and products to be more inclusive.
- Higher Trust and Emotional Connection – A small investment in accessibility can be essential to higher trust and emotional connection with customers. It highlights you understand their needs, increasing loyalty and brand recognition.
- Better Competitive Advantage – While Domino’s was fighting a legal battle, many competitors shifted to more accessible features that helped gain a competitive advantage over Domino’s. This also helps attract diverse talent from diverse backgrounds, leading to higher retention rates.
Domino’s Pizza faced a lawsuit in 2016 because its website and mobile apps were inaccessible to those with visual impairment or blindness and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) policies. The company later redesigned its online platforms to meet WCAG accessibility standards. This also showed Domino’s was an inclusive brand, allowing it to expand into markets with a better brand reputation.
Testing for Accessibility: Tools and Techniques for a Seamless UX
Once you have defined goals for accessibility and charted a roadmap, it’s time to test your current and post-revamp results, ensuring your digital content meets rigorous guidelines. These tools might be helpful in testing for accessibility:
- Manual Accessibility Testing
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- Manually testing to assess colour, text, font size, contrast, and interactive elements.
- Using screen readers, text-to-speech software, and assisted technologies ensures interactive elements and content are easy to navigate.
- Conducting quick and cost-effective heuristic evaluation to examine user interface (UI) design elements against established usability protocols.
- Automated Testing Tools
- Lighthouse – As part of Chrome browser DevTools, it can be used to test and report accessibility and SEO performance as part of an audit detailing areas where the website needs improvements.
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- WAVE – The WAVE browser extension reports and highlights potential accessibility issues on the website, helping improve UI, elements, and functionality for people with disabilities. A custom web design services provider can conduct WAVE tests as part of initial design tests and ensure your website complies with gold standards.
- AXE – This browser extension assesses poor color contrast, missing alt text, and other features automatically for accessibility issues during development
Conclusion
There are many benefits for your brand to invest in improving accessibility across your digital content and platforms. From better SEO reach to increased market share and brand recognition, good accessibility features highlight your commitment to inclusivity and diversity. Untitled10, with its web design services, prioritises accessibility during the development process to ensure your brand gets the appreciation and global reach it deserves. Contact us today, and let us help you build a more accessible and user-friendly website.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is accessibility in UI/UX design?
Accessibility in digital products allows people with disabilities to access digital content without barriers. It includes neutral colors, a high contrast theme, large font size, alt text, semantic HTML, meta tags, and text-to-speech features, making interacting with content easier.
How does inclusive design impact customer satisfaction?
The use of inclusive design is key to brand reputation and loyalty. Customers find it easier to interact with visual elements based on personalised experiences, leading to reduced negative reviews and higher SEO ranking.
What are the basic guidelines for accessible design?
The WCAG guidelines require brands to follow the POUR principles that require clear language, color contrast, alternative text, keyboard navigation, and assistive technologies to improve interaction.
What tools can test accessibility?
Several tools like WAVE, Lighthouse, and Axe browser extensions can be used to assess accessibility scores and use them as feedback to improve visual elements. Manual tests such as heuristic evaluation can also help improve users’ experience with visual impairments.