Website accessibility is very essential for the success of the site. Web developers in the quest for building accessible websites commit same mistakes over and over again. Sometimes they try so many different things to improve accessibility. But instead of improving, it further complicates the things. There are some guidelines which address this particular problem.

Web developers sometimes make use of too many Alt texts to images to help users who employ screen reader software. The Alt text must be short and simple and clearly describe the image, nothing more or nothing less. For images which are posted on the site for decorative purposes only, there is no need to use Alt text. Do not make unnecessary use of Alt text, as it becomes difficult for screen reader users to work through the page.

The adjoining links on a web page must be separated with non-link text. Some of the old browsers have problems with links which are very close. When you click on a particular link, all the adjacent links are also redirected to that web page. Sometimes web developers enter invisible characters like vertical bars in between links which confuse the screen reader users.

One of the more accepted ways to make sites more accessible is to create text only versions of the page. The idea being that if there is just text there, the page will be easier to print or magnify. The problem with text only pages is that they are a maintenance headache and they imply that the reader is getting something other than the page they actually want to read. Magnify text buttons. The idea here is that the customer clicks on a magnify icon and the font size is increased. The problem is the same as when the customer uses the browser magnification. Text will not always fit in the screen and so on.

Enlarging the text can coerce columns to scroll off-screen to the right or left and effectively fade away. When text is magnified, headers and bold can become confused and not easy to differentiate. But these tags perform as markers in the text to make them easier to read. Leaving them in the document is very important. The most popular color scheme on the Web is black text on a white background. But this color scheme is very hard to read on a computer screen. Color schemes like white on blue or green on black are a lot easier on the eyes.

Reverse the screen colors. It is alluring to go straight to white on black, but that has so much contrast that it is still hard to read. Think colors like blue, green or white on black or dark brown. Since you have moved the site into one column, you need to make sure that the first 5 screen-full of text are not your navigation. Keep it simple. Use classes to hide sub-navigation and keep just the basic one or two levels of navigation at the top and bottom of the page. Do not get rid of images. Do not remove or alter content. The point of the zoom layout is that it is the same content as the standard page, just made more legible for low-vision readers.

Tags: Common Web Accessibility Mistakes