A short guide to web accessibility
Tags: webdev, webaccessibility
Published: 2023-02-14 11:20:26

## What is meant by web accessibility?
Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites and web applications accessible by individuals with disabilities. This includes ensuring that users with any kind of visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the web content and controls smoothly and efficiently.

## Why web needs to be accessible for everyone?
Web needs to accessible for everyone not only because it shows our kind nature towards people with disabilities but also because we are bound to do it by the law as said by [the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities](https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html), the access to information and communications technologies, including the web, is defined as a basic human right and would you ever dare to violate someone's right? 

Anddddd... There is also a huge impact of web accessibility on your website's business.

## Impact of web accessibility on businesses
The influence web accessibility can have on your business can just be huge and can be valued using the stat that about [15-20% of the world's population has some sort of disability](https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/44575) and they have about **$13 trillion** as annual disposable income but still **96.8%** of home pages of 1 million top websites have [WCAG 2](https://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist) failures as of [WebAIM's 2022 data](https://webaim.org/projects/million/#:~:text=96.8%25%20of%20home%20pages%20had%20detected%20WCAG%202%20failures!).
 
The facts about these potential business benefits of web accessibility can be a article of its own. 
So why you will ignore this opportunity whether you are a developer, businessman or content creator and owns a website, because the demand is high but the supply is limited.

## How people with disabilities surf the internet?
When I myself came to know about the accessibility topic while learning to code, the first thought I got was how people with disabilities are surfing the internet and a quick google search made me know that people with different disabilities use different techniques to use internet. Here I list some: -
- Blind people: - Browse the web using [screen readers] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader)
- People with low vision: - Use extra large monitors and also increase default font size.
- Deaf people: - Use captions to understand any audio content.
- People with motor skills deficiency: - Use things like [head-mouse](https://www.orin.com/access/headmouse/#:~:text=HeadMouse%20replaces%20the,by%20head%20movement.), [head-pointer](https://volksswitch.org/index.php/volks-devices/customizable-head-pointer/#:~:text=A%20head%20pointer%20is%20used%20by%20individuals%20with%20limited%20hand%20or%20arm%20control%20to%20interact%20with%20a%20physical%20keyboard%20or%20a%20capacitive%2C%20computer/tablet%20touchscreen.%C2%A0%20It%20can%20also%20be%20used%20to%20manipulate%20objects%20like%20turning%20pages%20in%20a%20book.%C2%A0) or [mouth-stick](https://mouse4all.com/en/articles/mouth-sticks-for-quadriplegics/#:~:text=A%20mouth%20stick%20is%20an%20assistive%20device%20that%20is%20designed%20for%20people%20with%20uncontrolled%20hand%20movement%20or%20tremors%20due%20to%20cerebral%20palsy%20and%20for%20those%20unable%20to%20move%20their%20hands%20because%20of%20quadriplegia.%20With%20it%20they%20can%20perform%20activities%20like%20typing%2C%20pressing%20buttons%2C%20turning%20pages%20and%20even%20drawing.), [voice-recognition software](https://www.clickworker.com/customer-blog/speech-recognition-systems-for-disabled-persons/), an [eye-gaze system](https://occk.com/2018/03/05/eye-gaze-technology/#:~:text=It%20is%20an%20electronic%20device,from%20the%20cornea%20and%20retina.) or other [assistive technologies](https://www.w3.org/WAI/people-use-web/tools-techniques/).

## How to make your website and content accessible?
Now you know that accessibility cannot only help disabled people surf the web but also it can be beneficial for your business also, now the question arises what things we should keep in mind while making content so that it is accessible for everyone.
_Web accessibility techniques depends on the content you are having on your website and I am providing the easy checks that you can keep in your mind while employing accessibility. For further information about accessibility. Go to [W3C](https://www.w3.org/)_ 

Here are the practises that you can apply: -

1. **Descriptive Page Title: -** Page titles are the first thing that a screen reader reads and people using screen readers get an idea about what is the content inside this page and what tab they are on. So you should try making your Page titles descriptive and unique than other content on your website.
The title elements goes inside the head tag as shown below: -```
<head>
   <title>A guide to web accessibility | adityasaini3 </title>
</head>
```


2. **Alt text: -** Image alternative text are used to convey the purpose of any image out the screen reader users which are mostly blind people, that's why you should use alt attributes in your img tag to make to make images accessible to screen reader users.```
<img src="myPic.jpg" alt="here goes the alternative text" />
```If you are using any image to perform an action you should provide the alternative text according to the action not the image,for example:- Say you have an image of a home which you are using to navigate to home page instead of naming alt as "home" you should name its action which will be "navigate to homepage".

3. **Headings: -** Heading provide a structure to your website's content and makes it obvious for any disabled person where something end and a new thing starts that is why we should employ using different number of heading tags for different level of heading. As we know heading tag ranges from h1 to h6.

4. **Contrast ratio: -** The color of the text and background can influence people's difficulty to comprehend the text. Some people are unable to read dark text on light background and vice versa. So to counter this most people use contrast ratio of colours so that text get's accessible for everyone. The contrast ratio used for normal-size text is 4.5:1.

## Conclusion
The disabled people also have their right to access the web and we should ensure that thing in mind while making any website. The market of disabled people is also huge which can help you boost your business as most people are just ignoring them and if you would make your website accessible to everyone, you will definitely enjoy the advantage from others. 
As this was a short guide I will not be going in much more details and For more on accessibility you can visit [W3C](https://www.w3.org/).