Ten more tactics to support a more accessible and inclusive website

Many website teams are committed to making their site more accessible to people with disabilities but also strive to have an inclusive website in terms of its design and content.

Accessibility and inclusivity are related but they are not the same thing. There’s not necessarily a definition of what exactly an “inclusive” website entails, but for this article we’re going to define it as a site that is more inclusive for as many people as possible, for example spanning different ages, technical abilities, cultural background and reading ability, as well as people with disabilities.

It removes barriers to visiting the post, but also ensures people feel included and avoids them feeling excluded. Taking a definition like this means accessibility supports wider inclusivity, and inclusivity supports wider usability.

Achieving a more accessible and inclusive website is not always straightforward. In this post we’re going to explore ten tactics to help achieve it.

Why website accessibility is critical

Previously we wrote about the main reasons why you should invest in website accessibility. There range from supporting Diversity & Inclusion programmes to it being a legal compliance issue. It also happens to make solid commercial sense due to the high proportion of users living with disabilities who may visit your page. Improving accessibility is also good for usability and SEO, and arguably it is also an ethical issue too. Overall, there are multiple benefits to website accessibility, and it is difficult to argue against it.

Ten tips for website accessibility success

On this blog back in 2023 we also previously explored ten tips to support a more accessible website:

View accessibility as a content management issue
Use a range of accessibility tools for ongoing testing
Never forget alt text
Get accessibility awareness training
Make PDFs accessible
Add captioning and transcripts to videos
Consider colour contrast
Manage your accessibility statement
Speak to your agency about accessibility
Involve people living with disabilities.

Let’s dive into ten more tactics to support a more accessible and inclusive website.

1. Ensure your brand and design guidelines are accessible

Enterprises often have detailed brand and design guidelines that cover areas such as presentations, assets and web pages. These are usually created meticulously by brand agencies and go through multiple rounds of review. The guidelines might look great but are they accessible? Is that colour contrast actually OK? It’s always worth checking your guidelines are truly accessible, particularly if they were created some time ago. If necessary, update your guidelines.

It might also be that the guidelines are accessible, but a particular combination of two colours on your palette is not due to contrast issues. If this is the case, consider adding “colour combinations to avoid” as part of your guidelines.

If commissioning a refresh of your brand and the related design guidelines in the future, then also ensure accessibility is part of the conversation from day one and built into the agreed output.

2. Focus on neurodiversity as part of accessibility

Website accessibility efforts can tend to focus on physical disabilities such as people with visual and hearing impairments. Increasingly, website accessibility and website design recognise areas of neurodivergence including autism, ADHD and also dyslexia. There are disabilities and issues which are not visible and also still frequently misunderstood.

Neurodivergent users can get overwhelmed by too much content, dense blocks of text, colour contrast and more. Inconsistencies can make it harder to navigate around a site. Again, designing for neurodivergent users will invariably make a site more usable for everyone. This excellent article from Level Access explores neurodiversity and accessibility and is a good starting point on the topic.

3. Leverage features in your CMS

Many Content Management Systems (CMSs) and Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) are designed to support (or be close to) the AA-level of the WCAG 2 guidelines. Some solutions also incorporate features that you can use to deliver a more accessible and inclusive website that teams are not always aware of. For example, Sitecore Forms has the ability to check on a form’s accessibility and provides an indication of what needs to be done to make it accessible. Within Umbraco you can configure the media library to make it mandatory for any image to have alt text. Check the documentation for your CMS (or just Google it) to find out if there are any features that can help you support accessibility and inclusive content.

4. Or use accessibility plug-ins

If your DXP or CMS does not have native accessibility features, there may also be plug-ins and add-ons that are worth investigating and integrate with your CMS. These can support areas such as alt text, colour contrast checking and identifying pages which do not meet WCAG standards. For example, there are some accessibility tools available in the Umbraco Marketplace.

As a reminder, there are also a range of free accessibility support tools which might not integrate directly into your CMS but are easy and straightforward to use.

5. Define what inclusive content means in your content strategy

Inclusive content can mean different things to different people. It might relate to the level of readability of your content, so it can be understood by people with a low reading age. It might refer to the style and tone of voice of your content. It might – very specifically – mean avoiding the use of particular vocabulary or images. It might be more around consistent design. It might be more of a value that is more open to interpretation.

All of these are legitimate approaches that can benefit your website and your visitors, but if you do want to drive a more inclusive website with your content it is worth thinking about what this actually means to you and how it impacts your content. Incorporating this into your content strategy and guidelines can then provide the clarity to make your website more inclusive.

6. Create a bank of accessible images

One of the main “culprits” for a lack of accessibility is using images that have poor colour contrast. To avoid this, ensure the approved images in your CMS media library or your Digital Asset Management (DAM) system are all accessible, or if necessary, add a new folder of accessible images. This might not stop the problem entirely, but it should certainly reduce the number of images with colour contrast issues being added to pages.

7. Report internally on your website accessibility

Most digital teams report internally up the food chain on areas such as website visits, lead generation, newsletter sign-ups and so on. Perhaps there is a monthly or quarterly report.

Adding reporting about your level of website accessibility to this report and even in related areas such as content readability (potentially using the Flesch-Kincaid score) can help get accessibility and inclusivity on the agenda and also encourage your team and other content owners to focus on it.

Even if your senior management aren’t particularly interested (although they should be), measurement is essential to improvement, and when it’s added to reporting it will prompt actions that improve scores.

8. Incorporate accessibility into design and build processes from the start

If you’re working on a new website project that involves a new design and / or a custom build, then it really helps to incorporate accessibility into the design and development process early on. The last thing you want is to go down a particular route with everything signed off, only to find the design or a new component is not accessible and time has been wasted, or you have to reverse some of the design decisions. Incorporating accessibility into a project from day one will likely lead to better results all round.

9. Ensure accessibility is properly covered in your RFP process

Many organisations will run a Request for Proposal (RFP) or ITT (Invitation to Tender) to select a digital agency or implementation partner or procure a CMS / DXP solution. We’ve seen RFP documentation where reference to accessibility is pretty threadbare and even restricted to one or two sentences. If you are fully committed to an accessible website, then you’ll want any supplier to be committed to and have the necessary experience.

Always make sure accessibility is covered in your RFP documentation:

The accessibility of any procured solution and the required level relating to WCAG compliance.
The same for any accessibility of any website or output of a project.
How a website or solution will be measured to prove it is accessible.
What will happen if the solution or output is not accessible.
The experience of the agency and / or vendor involved.

10. Go for progress over perfection

Accessibility and inclusion are often a journey – there’s always more you can do. It is usually best to aim to make progress that makes a real-world difference to visitors to your site rather than trying to achieve perfection which you may never quite reach. Moving forward every month, for example, establishes direction and momentum, and over time may achieve more than if you are feeling like you always have a mountain to climb.

Here's to more accessible and inclusive websites

Website accessibility is critical while an inclusive website sets strong foundations for strong usability and easily digestible content. We hope you’ve found some of these tips useful! If you’d like to discuss how to make your site more accessible, then get in touch!