On The Importance of WordPress Accessibility: Why Does It Matter and How to Enhance It

by Vipe Team in WordPress Development; Published on 09.02.2023 Last updated on 26.05.2023

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Today our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development is asking you: What is the ultimate goal of any business that has opted for a website, be it a WooCommerce store or a full-blown enterprise platform? To gather more and more people to visit it and interact with it, of course! More visits and interactions often lead to increased profit and revenue. But in order for web developers to ensure high traffic, they first need to consider the website’s accessibility.

Our newest article is focusing entirely on this subject as we are firm believers in the idea that a platform should be constructed and maintained in a way that makes it easy to be used by everyone at any time. Oftentimes, especially at the early stages of website development, both professionals and users are focused mainly on the platform’s distribution, as well as aspects such as design, functionality, structure and implementing various marketing strategies. However, keeping in mind whether the website is fully accessible by a wide variety of potential visitors is one of the key takeaways that are about to shape the platform’s and business’s overall success in the days ahead.

Join us today as our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development is about to dive deep into the subject of WordPress accessibility. We’ll touch upon the subject of why it’s so important; what’s more, we’ll go further into discussing useful strategies that can help any developing team to enhance the platform’s accessibility so that it lives up to anyone’s standards.

So, without any further ado, let’s go straight into the topic!

What Exactly Is Website Accessibility and Where Does WordPress Stand In All of It?

Let’s begin by first explaining what accessibility means in the context of website development.

We’ve already mentioned that a successful website creation consists of a lot of strategizing and planning. Outside of budgeting, design, functionalities, menus, categories, payment integrations and all that’s in between, paying attention to the overall accessibility of the platform is one of the most important aspects of the entire process.

In a nutshell, website accessibility aims at providing ease of usage in terms of design and development so that many people can effortlessly access it and interact with it in various ways. After all, coming up with a website that is user-friendly is indeed one of the most important tasks that lay ahead of web developers. Ultimately, when we refer to increased accessibility, it’s only natural for WordPress to enter the picture since the open-source platform is notorious for its numerous advantages in terms of scalability and optimization features.

WordPress Goes Hand In Hand with Website Accessibility

Since website accessibility deals with matters such as integrations, functionalities, speed, better performance, easy maintenance and elevated optimization, it’s no wonder WordPress is oftentimes the number one place to go when in need of a scalable and successful platform.

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The world’s most popular CMS is famous mainly for its plethora of functionalities. Even though it originally started off as mainly a blogging platform, its open-source nature quickly made it possible for numerous professionals to constantly add up to WordPress’s ever-increasing set of functions, tools and integrations.

As of today, WordPress is widely used as a source platform for establishing all sorts of websites – enterprise-level, SMEs, WooCommerce stores, learning management systems, etc. What’s more, the added value of custom development grants WordPress even more benefits as opposed to other development platforms due to the fact that developers could easily opt for amazing personalized and specifically tailored solutions.

With so many features and advantages, accessibility serves as a children’s game for WordPress’s endless capabilities.

How to Enhance The Website’s Accessibility Features?

Given the fact that the issue regarding the website’s accessibility mainly touches upon the subject of anyone being able to access and use the platform, it’s quite essential right from the get-go for the development team to come up with useful strategies and approaches toward successfully achieving this very goal.

Below our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development is going to give you some great inputs and key takeaways that will hopefully help you navigate the whole accessibility subject. Let’s begin!

When Establishing a Website, Always Have in Mind Visitors with Disabilities

We believe it’s quite important that the very first thing that comes to mind whenever people mention accessibility is the approach toward making a website easy for usage for people with disabilities. Our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development is a firm believer in the idea that all people should equally be able to access any website or application out there effortlessly and without any obstacles stumbling the way.

In terms of disabilities, we usually think about auditory, cognitive or visual issues but reality shows us that there could be a multitude of other predispositions for a person to find it difficult to access a non-accessible website. Imagine you’ve broken your arm or are simply visiting the website from a place with a poor Internet connection – as we can see, there could be a gazillion reasons why somebody can’t effortlessly access a certain platform. So here are some useful tips on how to make a website more accessible given some of the most frequent obstacles and issues:

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Opting for people to be able to freely adjust the text size of the website’s content;
Don’t forget to add alt texts to images – the alt text serves as an explanation regarding what an image represents;
Adding audible files instead of written content so people can easily hear a story instead of reading it – screen readers are a great tool that comes in handy;
Make sure the design of the website in terms of contrast is sensitivity-friendly – also, make sure you choose colors and color combinations that make the entire website more visually appealing and coherent;
The audio and video matter – if you have videos on your website, adding subtitles is a great way to address people with auditory disabilities; on the other hand, auditory explanations of videos or content target individuals with sight issues;

Of course, there is a gazillion other ways in which a website could become more and more accessible for users with disabilities – our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development is curious to know whether you want to read more on the subject in a dedicated article so let us know.

Focus On Detailed Website Navigation

Establishing a website that has a poor navigation structure would be a horrendous experience for most people, especially nowadays when more and more aspects of web and mobile usage are fairly intuitive. Coming up with rather clear and simple navigation is key to a successful and positive user experience. Having a dedicated space for the menu and categories, page titles, self-explanatory URLs and to-the-point headings for structuring the content are all features of good navigation that will ultimately classify any website as accessible.

Don’t Overestimate the Power of Plugins and Automated Processes

The majority of WordPress developers and users are all about plugins and automated processes – don’t get us wrong, they have all the right to heavily rely on those. Our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development is just here to remind you that there are certain issues and obstacles that are hard to be spotted and solved by a plugin or any other type of automated process. Certain problems might prevent the website from being accessible and, in some cases, certain coding and development attempts need to be implemented in order to get rid of whatever issues. Custom development is an outstanding accessibility solution as well – opting for a custom approach is surely going to elevate a website’s entire performance.

accessibility

Pay Attention to All the Interactive Pieces To Be Located Easily

As we’ve stated numerous times, one of the websites’ primary goals is to reach a certain level of profit and revenue – essentially, this is mostly achieved through call-to-action buttons, filling out forms or engaging in making contact. All those website features should be easily accessible – make sure all CTA buttons are working properly, as well as being easily located throughout the website with the help of smart navigation features. Dedicating an entire Contact or About Us page is also a great way to boost client revenue and ease visitors when it comes to interacting with the platform by finalizing their actions.

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Choosing The Proper Theme Plays a Significant Role in Website Accessibility

Since we discuss all things WordPress-related, it’s rather important to mention the themes. Perhaps you already know that WordPress offers a plethora of themes in its repository – both users and developers can opt for a multitude of options, paid and free.

The thing with themes is that you need to choose one that is labeled as fully accessible in order to come up with a dazzling optimized and accessible platform. However, our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development is quick to warn you that you shouldn’t always trust what the description says – always opt for trying the theme out by yourself in order to check all its accessibility features. Some of those need to include keyboard website navigation and full user control of automated motion or players among others (mainly referred to in this article so far).

Test Your Website Speed in Environments That Don’t Offer High-Quality Internet Connection

Outside of all the interactions and functionalities, website accessibility also comes to speed. Providing your users with a fast-loading platform is key – today everyone wants to access anything in the blink of an eye. Testing your website in environments that don’t offer high-quality internet at all times is a great way for you to determine whether the platform is actually fully accessible to everyone at all times.

Focus On Website Accessibility Today and Aim at the Best Website Development Approaches

Of course, the website accessibility subject is never-ending – our Enterprise WordPress Agency for Development could go on and on about all things crucial and essential when it comes to this website development department. For today, we just wanted to lay the ground and share with you some of the most important characteristics of accessibility.

Focusing on website accessibility should definitely be included in web developers’ list of to-dos and duties – that’s how they ensure an easy and pleasant user experience for everybody at all times. There’s absolutely nothing better in the world of the web!