Accessibility for websites is emerging in even greater importance lately. It’s not only being thought of by website designers because of legal requirements, but also because considering the User Experience (UX) for visitors with various challenges in sight, ADHD, and a host of other things can make the overall experience better for all visitors.
The basics of accessibility often revolve around making sure the content on the site is organized and constructed in such a way as to help both humans and screen reader software the information necessary to describe the page structure (using heading tags) and imagery (alt text and captions). Additionally, re-sizing of content on the fly is another very important aid to make reading and viewing a page easier for those with visual difficulties.
If you want to test your website’s accessibility, one tool to consider is the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. This tool checks your website for accessibility issues and provides suggestions on how to improve your website’s accessibility.
As a WordPress shop, we wanted to look at the options for WordPress sites and see how they stacked up for creating a better and more accessible user experience. We took a look at 6 tools:
| Tool | Text Re-sizing | Contrast adjustments | Image tagging | Keyboard Navigation Aids | Focus Highlighting | Impairment Profiles | WCAG 2.1 AA, ADA, Section 508 compliance | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WP Accessibility Plugin |  | | Identifies images in Media Library needing alt text and enforces addition of alt text when loading pictures into page via Classic Editor | Adds skip links to pages for easier keyboard navigation and screen reading | | | | Free |
| One Click Accessibiliity |  | Includes Greyscale, High Contrast, Negative Contrast, and Light Background modes | | Adds skip links to pages for easier keyboard navigation and screen reading | | | | Free |
| UserWay Accessibility Widget | | Includes Color Desaturation, High Contrast, Negative Contrast, and Light Contrast modes | AI engine forms alt text and descriptions when missing from content | Allows better use of keyboard to navigate page and includes options for voice navigation. | |
| | $490/year (limited to 100K pageviews per month) |
| AccessiBe | | High Contrast, High Saturation, Low Saturation, Dark Contrast, Light Contrast, Monochrome, Text Colorization, Title Colorization, and Background Colorization. | AI engine uses OCR and image recognition to form alt text and descriptions when missing from content | Allows better use of keyboard to navigate page and use shortcuts for menus, headings, forms, and images. | |
| | $490/year (1000 page limit for a single site) |
The first two plugins are simply that. They modify the pages as they are built for display by WordPress. The modfications they provide also allow limited alterations of text and styling to help make it easier to read. They do not, however, cover many issues that would make a page uncompliant with the ADA and WCAG guidelines.
The last two plugins are attached to a service from their respective providers. These plugins introduce dynamic widgets to the website that allow users with impairments to enable aids specific to their own needs. They employ a mixture of JavaScript re-writes of the HTML code and artificial intelligence to add context to the page’s content that make it compatible with the guidelines. The services also provide legal support for companies that may need to prove compliance after a lawsuit or other complaint.
You also may notice that our site uses the AccessiBe service to help make our site compliant. We’ve chosen their plugin for its comprehensive coverage of accessibility aids and its pricing structure. If you’re interested in the service, reach out to us and we can even help you get a discount!
Want Your Site to Be Accessible?
Let’s just have a chat! We’ll give you a free assessment and set up a time to get things moving so that your new site can be up and running in no time.