How to Use a Website Accessibility Checker With a Clear Example

Website accessibility is one of the key elements of website design as it aims to allow an entire range of users including those with disabilities to be able to use the site. An accessibility checker for websites can help ensure that your site conforms to the standards of practice in accessibility. In this article, we will show you how to use website accessibility checkers, their advantages, and strategies to assess your website’s accessibility as well as how the tools help greatly improve the accessibility of your site.

1. What is a Website Accessibility Checker?

A website accessibility checker is defined as a type of tool which scans a web site for accessibility issues by checking it against a range of guidelines such as W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), or any other standards. Such tools check various features of your website such as the following:

• Visibility impairment color options.
• Motor Impairment keyboard support.
• Images with Alt tags for Screen Reader support.
• Headings and Navigation for Architecturing purposes.
• Mouse-less working functionality.

Utilizing site checkers in this case will guarantee that the users and visitors of the site can freely assess and commute within the website without any hindrance.

2. Why Use a Website Accessibility Checker?

Website accessibility checkers have their vital importance which is listed down below:

• Legal Requirements: Many countries would have an act in place that would require websites to be accessible. Websites should be accessible to all users as required by regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United States and the Equality Act in the United Kingdom. An accessible website is known to improve user experience not only for persons with disabilities but for all users. Making your website accessible to persons with disabilities easily expands the number of people who are able to access your website. Good SEO practices tend to increase website rankings in search engines. Some such techniques include providing alternative text for images. There are many online tools that are able to evaluate how accessible your website is to users. Here are some of those tools. The following tools can be used to evaluate the accessibility features on the website: WCAG compliant website evaluator if follow the provided link : https://www.w3.org/WAI/test-evaluate/ Accessibe to easily evaluate compliance the standards website optimizer and Enhancer by Accessibe: https://www.accessibe.com/ … etc.
• Color Contrast Checker: This tool makes certain that users with visual disabilities are able to read text, since the color of the background and that of the text will have sufficient contrast between them.

3.2 Website Accessibility Checker Plugins

There are multiple browser extensions that allow users to check the accessibility of a website directly from the browser. Among the many plugins available, some of the most popular are:

• Google Lighthouse: It is a free open source tool that is built into the chrome developer tools with the aim of assessing the accessibility and other performance metrics of a website.
• axe Accessibility Checker: It's an extension that helps solutions for content accessibility related problems by pinpointing them.
• WAVE: This is a service that informs the web designer whether their chosen design is accessible and what the potential problems may be.

4. How to Check Web Accessibility Color

Whenever conducting checks on any website it is possible to determine the level of color contrast as it is one of the key indicators. The use of tools such as Color Contrast Checker helps to understand whether the specified ratios on the contrast between background color and the text color is in the recommended range. This will make sure that even users with color blindness or visual impairment can read through your content.

5. Website Accessibility Score

There are a number of tools that offer to test the accessibility of a particular site and provide a score along with a rating of how good that site is in following the framed directive and guidelines concerning the accessibility.

Tools like Google Lighthouse provide an accessibility score depending on multiple factors not limited to the use of ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications), color contrast or text alternatives. Strive for as high as possible score so as to be able to have users who are able to access your site.

6. Steps to Enhance Accessibility for Websites

After using an accessibility checker, you might find problems that have to be worked on. Below are some of the standard website accessibility challenges and how to fix them:

• Alt texts not present: Enabling screen readers through appropriate descriptions of all pictures in form of alt text labels.
• Color Contrast Requirements: Change images together with texts so that they stand out of the backgrounds they are placed on.
• Link Text’s That Are Not Working: Readily available text that calls for users to click on or provides them with similar options should contain active links, which also buttressed.
• Headings Not Used: Some other tag for example H1, H2, H23 etc helps readers to find what they are looking for without getting lost inside the content.

7. Closing Remarks

Online platforms understand the significance of accessibility and why web accessibility is important. Relying on a website checker will let you spot flaws on your site so that necessary alterations can be done giving all the users a room to use the site. Even if you only want to enhance the user experience, this is an important tool that allows you to check compliance with legal requirements.

Take a look at your site now. Is it available to all audiences? If not, make the necessary arrangements.