The ongoing digital transformation is making it easier for people to access important information, goods, services, and more on the internet. However, this is not true for people living with disabilities, whose barrier to access all of the above is often web accessibility. Web accessibility depends on how websites are built, with web developers being tasked with adding the necessary accessibility features to the websites they build. However, adding these features is not always feasible for websites that have already been built and this is where solutions like accessiBe come in.
What is accessiBe?
accessiBe is an automated web solution that uses AI to help make websites more accessible. It does this by adding the necessary accessibility features that help businesses be legally compliant, earn more customers and increase access to information for users and visitors living with disabilities.
So, how does accessiBe do all this?
Adding Alt Tags
Alt tags are HTML attributes that are used to add descriptive texts to images. These descriptions can give screen readers helpful information that helps blind users understand a website better. When added to a website, either as a WordPress plugin or a single line of code, accessiBe adds descriptive alt tags that are often better than what most developers would add.
Keyboard Navigation
Keyboard navigation is often hard or impossible for those living with disabilities. All elements on a website should be accessible using keyboard navigation. accessiBe makes the necessary keyboard navigation adjustments to make them easier to reach as well as be understood through screen readers. The areas of keyboard navigation that accessiBe works on include menus, popups, skip links, and dropdowns.
ARIA Attributes
ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a set of attributes that help make content more accessible to people with disabilities. The tags often contain useful information about the HTML elements they accompany. The “role” attribute is especially important in defining the specific role of an element, such as a button acting as a form submit link. ARIA attributes can also be used to disable or enable certain buttons, thereby making forms and other elements on a website better understood.
Adding Default HTML Tags
A lot of web developers use the wrong HTML tags for a lot of different things. For example, some of them use anchors for buttons which ends up confusing those using the website using a screen reader. When used this way, additional code has to be added to the anchor to make it work as a button. accessiBe ensures that you use the correct HTML tags for the right elements. For example, accessiBe enforces the use of buttons for buttons, anchors for links, and h-tags for headings and titles.
Switching any of these elements confuse screen readers who read the page according to how HTML tags are added and placed.
Although there are lots of areas that developers can focus on to make their website more accessible, the three areas highlighted above are the ones that are often forgotten. accessiBe helps correct these mistakes seamlessly and in the background to help make your website more accessible for disabled users.
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