Today’s online users expect certain features from the websites they visit. Website developers implement these elements to create an optimal user experience (UX) and help businesses meet their marketing goals.
But overlooking users with special needs can limit your site’s ability to reach a larger portion of your target audience. It can hurt your search marketing, lead generation, and client acquisition efforts.
Understanding the Special Needs of Users
Accommodating users with special needs lets you deliver the value of your products and services despite the physical or cognitive challenges website visitors may have.
Limitations related to learning, vision, hearing, and other abilities prevent users from getting the information they need from your business website.
This causes them to look elsewhere, increasing your site’s bounce rates and impacting its search rankings. It can cause frustration among visitors while giving them a negative impression of your brand.
Website designers must understand the technologies that are available to help users with special needs make their way through the online marketplace.
There are also website design elements and applications that can be used when designing and creating your website.
Benefits of an Accessible Website
In addition to delivering a better user experience for visitors with special needs, an accessible website offers a wide range of benefits to your business.
Your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts are further enhanced when you meet the special needs of users.
Including alt text for your site’s images allows search engines to better crawl and index your site’s pages while providing information to visually impaired users.
The UX of your site improves for all of your users when you put standard accessibility practices in place. Many web developers uncover usability issues they may have previously overlooked.
The changes you make help visitors with special needs while improving the UX for mobile users, simplifying navigation, and reducing friction in the sales process.
Providing an accessible website enhances your brand reputation and credibility among your target audience. It demonstrates your awareness of the needs of all users and your willingness to meet those needs.
All of these efforts ultimately allow you to reach a larger number of website visitors. This translates into greater visibility and increased revenue for your business.
Accessible Website Design
Your site’s design must be compatible with the available screen reading technologies. These tools make it easy for users to take text and images and convert them into usable content.
Alt tags and other text labels help users recognize images, infographics, and other media through the use of screen readers. Page titles also help users make sense of the content on your website and improve its usability.
Assistive scanning keyboards may be used by some website visitors. Your site’s design should be compatible with these tools while integrating the keyboard shortcuts needed to navigate your site’s pages.
Users must be able to modify the font size of your website. The color and positioning of important text elements should also be considered. You may need to test different strategies to determine which ones offer the best experience to users.
Creating an accessible website design prevents you from limiting a user’s access to the content and value it provides.
Making your website compatible with screen readers, assistive scanning keyboards, and other tools improves the ease with which users engage with your business.
How have you improved the user experience of your website for visitors with special needs? What challenges are you having in reaching more online users? Let us know in the comments below.
The user experience is critical to the success of your website design. But creating a website that’s accessible to users with special needs benefits your business in many ways.
Recognizing the special needs of users and helping them get the benefits of your products or services help you achieve a new level of online marketing success.
