Universal Design Ideas for Making Small Business Websites Accessible

If you own a small business, you might be considering building a website.? Before you do, make sure your design is accessible to everyone. As an entrepreneur and business owner, understanding how to design an obtainable website is essential to your success. You're in business to make money, and the faster you can get people to your site and convert them into customers, the more money you'll make.

There are seven principles of universal design to consider when making a small website more accessible include:

Equitable use of design features

When designing your website, don't forget to consider your audience's needs in addition to your own. Here are some tips for creating an equitable website:

• If you want visitors to fill out a form, make sure the form fields are large enough to accommodate text input from various input devices.
• If you want users to upload pictures, make sure pictures can be resized for those users with vision impairments and browsers which don't support image resizing.
• Make sure your website's design will work as well on mobile devices as it does on desktop or laptop computers.
• Older browsers that don't support CSS or PNG should be supported.

Creating an equitable website will make it easier for people using older browsers and computers to view your website.? This will allow your website to be accessed by all users who own a computer, not just those who have the newest bells and whistles.

Flexibility in use

Offer more than one way to accomplish tasks. When designing your website, consider how visitors with different disabilities can accomplish tasks on your page. Make sure your website is accessible to everyone, not just to people who are able-bodied. Here are some tips:

• To fill out a form on your site, consider providing a "skip to main content" link. This will allow visually impaired people to bypass the form and go directly to the main content.
• Suppose you're asking visitors for their email address or phone number. In that case, you can use an autocorrected field so that visitors don't have to worry about accidentally entering errors into their email address or phone number.
• Consider providing a telephone number field that includes an option for voicemail.
• Consider using a screen reader to read out the information you're collecting. This will make sure you get the information right!

Simple and Intuitive

Have you ever head of the acronym or phrase KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid? It means most things work best when they are kept simple instead of complicated. Some tips on keeping things simple and intuitive on your website are:?

• Use simple words when explaining something. Keep things brief and straight to the point
• Add a search function. This makes it easy for a customer to find what they are looking for.

Perceptible information and operation

When designing your website, make sure the information you're trying to relay to your visitor is clear. If you're asking users for their email addresses, make sure the text field is large enough to utilize and that the information requested is legible.?

If your website is going to host a lot of video content, consider adding transcriptions or subtitles so that people with hearing problems or language barriers can consume the information given.

Tolerance for error

If you are going to have subscribers or a contact box requesting more information, provide warning alerts on the information that is a must for you to communicate. An example would be, if you know an email is needed, make sure the user has the right formatting or it will not submit their data. If you have a guestbook on your site that accepts writing in different languages and script fonts, ensure the error messages will be in the visitors' preferred language and script.

Low physical effort

When designing your website, make sure visitors don't exert too much energy. Here are some tips:

• Make sure the web page loads quickly and easily. Don't overload your design with a lot of graphics and sounds. Make sure navigation is straightforward and that you can use the mouse to move between pages.
• Consider using a page that scrolls down automatically when you click on it. This will ensure viewers don't have to scroll too far down on the page to get back up at the top. You can also add at the bottom of the page a button that says “Take to Top '' to send the visitor right back to the top of the page instead of them having to scroll back.
• Utilize keyboard shortcuts

Size & space approach and use of colors

When designing your website, make sure the page is neither too large nor too small. Do not? make your site so small that it needs to be enlarged before you can read it. If you have an accessible version of your site, remember to provide an alternative version that's larger and easier for people with vision impairments to read.

Make sure the colors and styling of your site aren't causing visual or cognitive overload for visitors with a particular disability. Use basic fonts and a color scheme that is consistent with your brand. For example, lots of blue on one page may make a mental association with First Aid; lots of purple may make a mental association with Emergencies, and lots of white may make a mental association with Doctors.

In conclusion, designing an equitable website is the first step to making your website accessible for the full range of people who want to use it, including those with disabilities. Designing an equitable website will help you create a more successful and growing business.

At 6pm EST tonight [Tuesday, March 1, 2022] I have a workshop where we're going to learn how to to make your website more accessible.

It's a free workshop and I'd love to see you there. This workshop is brought to you by the Grow with Google Digital Coach program and you can join us at 6pm by clicking the link here:?https://prm.rslts.co/7SKE

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