Just like how WordPress embraces inclusivity, web accessibility is all about creating websites and content that is accessible to all, especially with new advancements in technology every day.
Whether you're a developer or a designer, it's your responsibility to ensure that your website is accessible for everyone, regardless of their physical abilities.
With Visual Composer, you can easily make your websites accessible and user-friendly for everyone, ensuring equal access to information and services online. Let's explore the key features that can help you create inclusive and accessible websites in 2023.
Importance of Web Accessibility For Your Website
Web accessibility is not just the right thing to do, it is also becoming increasingly more important in terms of legal requirements. Approximately 15% of the world's population faces limitations in accessing websites due to disabilities, yet only around 10% of the web is currently accessible.
Various countries have laws mandating website accessibility for people with disabilities. For instance, in the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires all websites that offer goods or services intended for the general public, to be accessible.
More recently, web developer communities have been raising discussions about the first cases of website accessibility lawsuits. So, even if you think this doesn't currently affect you, consider how you or your clients would feel if faced with a letter regarding website accessibility flaws.
With Visual Composer, you can ensure that your WordPress websites are compliant with all of the following web accessibility standards and best practices:
- Optimal contrast between text and background, ensuring it is possible for people with visual impairments to read the content.
- Readable fonts with adjustable font size, which allow users to increase or decrease the text size according to their preferences.
- Alternative text and ARIA attributes for images, that provide a textual description of the image and help individuals with visual impairments who use screen readers to understand the content.
- Keyboard accessibility, ensuring that all functionality and interactive elements on the website can be accessed and operated using a keyboard alone for individuals who have difficulty using a mouse.
- Responsive design, that adapts to different screen sizes and devices, ensuring that users can access the website and its content easily regardless of the device they are using.
Implementing these practices ensures that your website is inclusive and can be accessed by a wide range of users, including those with disabilities.
Visual Composer Features To Make Your Website Accessible
Visual Composer offers powerful features that help create accessible websites. Let's explore these four key features and how they can enhance the accessibility of your website.
Contrast Checker and Insights
One of the most important aspects of web accessibility is readability.
The built-in Contrast Checker in Visual Composer Insights checks your website's text and background colors, identifies colors with insufficient contrast, and allows you to change them easily.
This is important for people with visual impairments or color blindness, as it improves readability and ensures the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 AA contrast ratio standards of 4.5:1 are met.
Insights also checks your content for missing image descriptions, ALT attributes, headings, and other attributes, that help describe images. This helps people who use screen readers to understand and be able to interact with your website.
Custom Data Attributes
Custom data attributes are another useful feature for accessible websites, as they provide more context.
Visual Composer allows you to add extra data attributes, such as the aria-label, to images, buttons, or any other element on your website that doesn't have a visible label.
These attributes are used by screen readers and other assistive technologies to ensure accurate interpretation and help people using them understand the purpose of each element.
Font Sizes
Optimal font sizes are essential for readability, as they ensure a consistent and pleasant reading experience for your visitors.
Visual Composer allows you to adjust font sizes to fit your design and for each device, ensuring optimal readability across different screens and devices. All of this is possible through the Font Manager.
In addition, Visual Composer allows you to use REMs instead of pixels as a unit of measurement. Using REMs allows users to zoom in or increase their font sizes without disrupting the layout, while pixels do not. Therefore, using REMs is highly recommended to enhance accessibility.
Responsive Design
Lastly, let's talk about responsive design, a crucial aspect for everyone who browses the web using various devices.
Responsive design ensures that content remains accessible and readable, regardless of the screen size.
With Visual Composer, you benefit from automatic responsiveness, meaning your designs will adapt to different devices seamlessly. However, the editor also provides additional options for custom responsiveness, allowing you to fine-tune your layout according to your preferences.
Additionally, all Visual Composer pre-built templates are also made responsive with accessibility in mind.
Responsive websites play a vital role in promoting inclusivity, expanding audience reach, and showcasing a strong commitment to accessibility for all users. It's a crucial step that should not be overlooked.
How to Check if Your Website Is Accessible
There are several tools available that can help you check if your website is accessible. One popular tool is the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool, which checks your website for accessibility issues and provides suggestions for improvement.
Another tool is the Web Accessibility Checker, which checks your website's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
In addition to using these tools, there are plenty of other web accessibility testing tools and audits available. These can give you a better understanding of how people with disabilities use your website and where improvements can be made.
Create Inclusive Websites Accessible to Everyone
In conclusion, Visual Composer is the perfect tool for creating user-friendly and inclusive websites for everyone. Its built-in contrast checker, advanced settings for custom data attributes, customizable font sizes, and responsive design features make it easy to create accessible websites.
Whether you're a web expert, WordPress developer, or web designer, you should seriously consider using Visual Composer if you want to design and build accessible websites in 2023.
So, start building accessible websites today!
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