A good website is made up of many components, but one that is often underutilized or even forgotten about is accessibility.
Accessibility on the web is defined as being available though sight, hearing or touch, compatible with a keyboard and mouse, user-friendly and easy to understand, and being cross-browser compatible. In other words, the site should work for anyone at any time, regardless of the technology that is being used to access it. The better a site's accessibility, the larger and more diverse audience it will draw.
Here are some key elements to keep in mind to accomplish this goal.
Consistency
Making sure that scripts and CSS styles are consistent throughout a site will go a long way toward its ease of use. Visitors appreciate not having to hunt for simple features, such as a contact form. They also will spend more time on a site that does not require them to visually adjust when moving from one section to another.
Speed
Using a caching solution or a CDN can offset bandwidth usage and speed up a site's performance. Nothing turns away traffic faster than a slow or unresponsive website. When writing the CSS code, use as few classes as possible to accomplish the design goal. The less style code a browser has to process, the faster the site will load. Search engines will also penalize a site for being too slow.
Optimization
All written content should be clear, concise and well structured with proper heading levels such as H1 and H2. Alt attributes should also be used for images to help get their meaning across and to allow software for the visually impaired to read what the image is about. Overall this will improve the site's usability, improve SEO and help to give it a better ranking.
Optimization also applies to code. Adhere to standards and do not use any more HTML or CSS than is absolutely necessary. The code running the backend is just as important as the front-facing design.
Not sure if your site is accessible or not and want some help making sure it goes above and beyond basic Internet making standards? Contact Xcellimark for information on how we can help you with consistency, speed and optimization.
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