Enough reasons to take accessibility seriously
In the title of the article I promised you that I would give you some good reasons to prioritize accessibility. Although the ethical aspect is a reason in itself, there are many other reasons to take accessibility seriously.
1. For some organizations it is legally required
Although the Equal Treatment Act states that companies must offer their products and services as accessible as possible, there are no legal consequences for most organizations if your website is inaccessible. However, it is different for government agencies and public institutions.
The latter are legally required to comply with the WCAG guidelines at AA level. This not only includes government websites, but also websites of provinces and municipalities, for example.
2. More potential conversion because you eliminate pain points for all your users
If your website is not (sufficiently) accessible, you will miss out on potential customers. It is a shame if you miss out on conversion because, for example, your order page or quote request form is not suitable for supporting technologies.
Also remember that if you make your website processes easier and clearer for your users, your conversion will probably benefit anyway. Something that might be a deal breaker for users with a disability, might also be a pain point for other users. Thinking about an accessible website is therefore thinking about usability for all users. Not just people with a disability.
An accessible website often provides a better user experience, which in turn brings SEO benefits.
For example, a good heading structure ensures a sweden telegram data good experience with a screen reader, because users can then choose which part of the text they want to read. But search engines also like this, because they then better understand what the main topics of your text are. In addition, with a good heading structure, you have a chance that your page will be included as a featured snippet in the search results.
Also read: Digital accessibility: don't forget the elderly!
Another example is the inclusion of alt text in images. For screen reader users, this gives them an idea of the image's content, but the same goes for search engines.
In some cases, it even makes sure that some of your content that would normally not be indexed, gets indexed. Think about videos for example. By adding a transcript to your video, it makes your video more accessible to your users. And at the same time, it makes the content of that video accessible to search engines.
4. It forces you to write structured code
Although CSS and JavaScript allow you to make your code do exactly what you want, in terms of styling but also the order in which elements appear on the screen, you should ask yourself whether that is always a good idea. By using as many standard HTML elements as possible and maintaining a chronological structure of elements in your code, you ensure accessible code.
