Digital accessibility services refer to making your website or digital content accessible. In this blog post, we are going to discuss website accessibility services and accessibility remediation services and what are the benefits of these services.
What are Accessibility Remediation Services?
When making your website or digital content accessible, remediation is key because it is part of the service where things are made accessible. Accessibility remediation refers to the process of bringing your digital assets - such as websites, applications, and documents compliant with the accessibility standards and guidelines with the aim of providing a better user experience for people with disabilities.
What are the three types of accessibility services?
There are three types of barriers that are addressed with the help of accessibility services, as mentioned below:
Visual Accessibility:
Visual accessibility refers to the act where digital content is accessible and used by people with visual impairments. This type of accessibility is for the ones who are blind, have low vision, or have color blindness. To ensure visual accessibility, features like adding alternative texts for images, high contrast options, and resizable text are added.
Auditory Accessibility:
Auditory accessibility refers to the ability to access and use the content by people with hearing impairments. This type of accessibility is for the ones who are deaf or hard of hearing. To ensure auditory accessibility, features such as including closed captions for videos and transcripts of audio content are added.
Motor Accessibility:
Motor accessibility refers to when people with motor impairments can access and use digital content. This type of accessibility is for the ones who are with limited mobility, agility, or coordination. To ensure motor accessibility, features like keyboard navigation, voice recognition, and alternative input devices are used.
Importance and Benefits that are Offered by Accessibility Remediation?
Today's world puts so much emphasis on inclusion, diversity, and equity, but there is a lack of attention put on accessibility. Some of the benefits that accessibility remediation offers include the below-mentioned factors:
Legal Requirements
Many countries have laws and regulations that require digital accessibility for people with disabilities. Failing to comply with legal requirements can result in getting fined.
Ethical Considerations
Ensuring that your website or digital content is digitally accessible is an ethical consideration that makes sure that everyone has equal access to information and services. It shows a commitment to diversity and inclusion. It also allows you to build trust with customers and stakeholders.
Business Benefits
Digital accessibility services can help you bring significant business benefits like increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. It also allows for improvement in brand reputation, reaching a wider audience, including people with disabilities.
Competitive Advantage
Being digitally accessible to every audience, you are providing your business with a competitive advantage. It can help you differentiate your business from your competitors and position it as a leader in accessibility and inclusive design.
Innovation
Making your digital content accessible can lead to innovation and creativity in design and development. It can lead you to inspire businesses to find new ways and creative solutions to access challenges, leading to better products and services for everyone.
How to ensure that your website is digitally accessible?
There are several ways to ensure your website accessibility, some of which are mentioned below:
Design with Accessibility in Mind
Developing your website by incorporating accessibility into your design from the beginning by considering the needs of people with disabilities in mind.
Use Accessible Design Elements
Using accessible design elements such as adding high color contrast schemes, clear and legible fonts, and easy-to-navigate layouts can enhance your website accessibility.
Using Alternative Text for Images
When you add alternative text (alt text) to your images, it helps people who use screen readers can understand the content of the image.
Provide Captions and Transcripts for Videos
Adding captions and transcripts to your website's video and audio content allows people who are deaf or hard of hearing to access the content.
Ensure Keyboard Accessibility
Making your website accessible with a keyboard allows people with motor disabilities to access your content easily.
Using Descriptive Links
Adding descriptive links explaining the purpose of the link can let the people using screen readers understand where the link leads.
Test with Assistive Technologies
When developing your website, make sure to test your website by using assistive technologies to ensure that screen readers and speech recognition software are working perfectly fine.
Benefits of Hiring a Digital Accessibility Service Provider
When coming to get your website accessible, doing it all by yourself can cost you a lot of your time, and it also doesn't ensure that you will be able to fix every barrier. The guidelines and standards of Accessibility are not something anyone can understand; that's why there is a huge demand for website accessibility service providers.
Here are some benefits of service providers:
Superior Knowledge about Accessibility:
Digital accessibility service providers possess in-depth knowledge about accessibility as they are already certified and possess extensive training in specific technical areas. This kind of backing allows them to work more efficiently and quickly when compared to the ones who do not have such knowledge or training.
Firsthand Knowledge and Experience with Disability
The accessibility services consultant typically has first-hand knowledge of people with disabilities or works with them as colleagues. This allows them to know how these people access the web and information using assistive technology.
Functional Testing
Functional testing is one of the most used testing involving accessibility testing tools, such as software programs and online testing tools that look for certain attributes, such as alt text, captions, subtitles, transcripts, etc. You can do all this by yourself, but accessibility service providers, on the other hand, will do a combination of automated and manual, and functional testing to ensure that every barrier is fixed.
Can Make Judgement Calls
With the help of their judgment calls, they can find the gaps that can improve your web accessibility. For example, adding proper alt text conveys the proper message.
Up-to-Date Knowledge
As they are experts in this field thus, they find the updated information soon and are up to date with the changes in the technical requirements for digital accessibility. Most importantly, they possess knowledge about legislation such as Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, including recent updates on WCAG 2.1 or any other new requirements and compliance deadlines.
Conclusion
This post has discussed the importance of accessibility remediation and how it helps businesses. We also discussed the types of accessibility services addressed and the ensuing ways to make your website accessible. And also some benefits of hiring a digital accessibility services provider.
