Accessibility: About Web Accessibility
3 min
In this article
- The importance of web accessibility
- Sight conditions and visual information
- Motor conditions and site navigation
- Hearing conditions and audio
- Cognitive disabilities and disorders
Accessibility refers to the practice of making it possible for people to access services, resources, and goods, regardless of disability or condition. Web accessibility takes this concept, and transfers it to the internet.
By practicing web accessibility, you ensure that everyone, including those with disabilities or conditions, can access, navigate, and enjoy a site. Some visitors experience sites differently, and it is important to adapt sites to accommodate those experiences.
The importance of web accessibility
According to the World Health Organisation, roughly 15% of the population have some form of disability. Therefore, web accessibility is an important part of site creation, building, and maintenance. By making a site accessible, you ensure that everyone can access and enjoy it.
To get started, we recommend building an accessible site from scratch. You can do so by beginning with an accessible site template in the Wix Editor, and thoroughly following our accessibility checklist.
If you already have an existing site, you can use the Accessibility Wizard. The Wizard is a tool that scans Wix sites, locates potential accessibility issues, and provides actionable solutions.
Keep in mind that although there are international web standards that sites are held to, your region may have its own specific set of requirements.
Tip:
Even if you've built a site with accessibility in mind, we recommend using the wizard in case there's anything you may have missed.
Important:
While Wix is always striving to improve our products and services, we cannot guarantee that sites you / your team build will be compliant with the relevant region's accessibility laws and regulations. We recommend consulting an accessibility expert to ensure that any sites you create are meeting the standards for the region.
Sight conditions and visual information
Visual information includes text, images, and GIFs, and makes up the majority of content on most sites. Visitors who are blind, have low vision, or have difficulty processing visual information, may not be able to see site content well—or even at all.
These visitors may rely on other methods and assistive technologies to help them navigate sites, such as screen readers. Screen readers read a site's content, and turn it into audio that the visitor can hear.
We recommend preparing visual media to ensure they are accessible to these visitors. You can prepare visual media by:
Tip:
Don't forget to check that all of the text on the site has the correct HTML tag, so the screen reader doesn't skip or jump around the pages.
Motor conditions and site navigation
Visitors with motor-related difficulties and disabilities may use different methods of navigating through a site, such as their keyboard, or assistive technologies.
To ensure that these visitors can navigate and explore site content, we recommend adding two or more methods of site navigation. Popular ones include:
You should also add the correct HTML tags to all text on the site. This is so visitors using the tab key to navigate can see the content in the correct order, and don't need to worry about the tab key skipping or jumping around the page.
Hearing conditions and audio
Some visitors may have disabilities or conditions related to sound. These visitors may be deaf or hard of hearing, or have trouble processing auditory information.
To ensure these visitors can access and enjoy audio on the site, you should add alternatives for any media that contains audio. Some of these include:
Cognitive disabilities and disorders
There are a range of disorders and disabilities that have an effect on a person's cognitive function. Some of these include autism, ADHD, brain injuries, dementia, and aphasia.
Visitors with these conditions can experience difficulty with focus, reading comprehension, and information processing. In order to make sites accessible for these visitors, we recommend the following steps:
- Ensure the site's format, structure, and layout are clear. For example, the main content of the page should not be attached to the header.
- Use language that is easy to understand.
- Minimize the use of decorative and / or animated elements on sites.
- Avoid using lots of different colors on a site, and make sure they're not too bright.
- Add alternatives to media that contain audio, such as transcripts and captions.
