More often than not, accessibility is often disregarded when building websites as developers focus more on aesthetics and functionality. This results in building sites or products that are inaccessible to people with disabilities, situational disabilities and socio-economic barriers like a poor network connection.

This article emphasizes the importance of accessibility in front-end development, some common accessibility barriers, and the best practices for implementing accessibility in your products.

What is accessibility?

Accessibility involves making information, products, services and content available and inclusive to all users regardless of their disabilities and socio-economic status.

Building accessible websites ensures different people can access the web regardless of how, when and where they are accessing it.

Common Barriers to Web Accessibility

• Lack of alt text on images.

• Lack of captions or transcriptions on videos.

• Poor colour contrast.

• Inaccessible forms.

• Inaccessible Navigation.

Techniques for making front-end accessible

1. Use descriptive link text: When directing someone to a resource, another website, or even somewhere else on the page, it is better to avoid generic terms like "Go here" or "click here". This would help users with screen-readers to understand the content of the link.

2. Providing alt texts for images: The alt text is rendered in place of an image if it doesn't load. This may be due to a broken link, the image not being available or a poor network connection. This text also allows screen-readers to describe the images to visually impaired users.

3. Providing transcripts and captions for videos: Captions display the text being spoken in the video, while transcripts are a written version of the spoken content. Implementing this feature would make the product more accessible to users with hearing problems.

4. Good colour contrast: It is good practice to ensure that the colour contrast between the text and the background is sufficient to enable users with colour blindness or any other visual defect to see the text. This applies to all users, as a poor colour contrast like a light grey text on a white background might be frustrating.

5. Making Forms Accessible: For forms that collect information from the user, it is essential to provide labels such that users with screen-readers would know what information is required.

6. Use of semantic HTML: Semantic HTML uses elements that clearly describe the element's purpose and content. This is impactful in that it presents the content of a webpage to users with assistive devices in a structured and more meaningful way.

7. Use of ARIA: Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) attributes are HTML attributes that provide additional information to assistive technologies, making it easier for users to navigate and interact with web content. For example, the role attribute can be used to describe the purpose of an element, and the aria-label attribute can be used to provide a label for an element that is not immediately obvious.

Benefits of accessible front-end development

We have seen various ways our inaccessible website can serve as a barrier to people facing one or more disabilities and we have gone through some of the ways to make our website more inclusive. Why put all these structures in place and pay attention to this vital development aspect?

• Improved user experience: An accessible front-end website or product can improve everyone's overall experience. Users are much more inclined to interact with and revisit websites and applications if they are easier to use and intuitive, which increases engagement and user satisfaction.

• Improved search engine optimization: Using descriptive link text and alt text for images are examples of accessible design strategies that can help with search engine optimization (SEO), which makes it easier for people to discover your content on search engines.

• An accessible front end may make websites and applications more user-friendly for all. The overall user experience can be improved. For instance, by including descriptive link text that describes where clicking on the link will lead the user.

Conclusion

In conclusion, accessibility should be a top priority for front-end developers. By implementing accessible design techniques, developers can ensure that their websites and applications are usable and navigable for all users, regardless of their abilities. Not only does accessible design provide benefits for users with disabilities, but it can also improve the overall user experience for all users, leading to increased engagement and satisfaction. As developers, it is our responsibility to create digital content that is accessible and inclusive for everyone. Let's work together to make the web a more accessible place for all.