International Day of Persons with Disabilities on 3 December 2019 is an opportunity to ensure that we #LeaveNoOneBehind. Focusing on this year’s theme ‘The future is accessible’ our communication and digital team at MannionDaniels have provided some top tips to help improve the accessibility of your organisation’s website on both desktops and mobile devices.

There are four key types of disabilities to consider when designing or creating content to improve your digital accessibility.

Physical

• Make sure the buttons on your websites are big enough
• Check areas that rely on swipe gestures as these can cause difficulty for users
• Ensure content is in a logical order and correctly aligned so it is easy to follow.

Cognitive

• A busy page layout can be confusing, keep it simple!
• Ensure that iconography is easily understood and recognisable and, if you can, add text information to aid this
• If you have flickering images, ensure there is a control on the page to stop any movements
• Make sure to write acronyms and abbreviations in full.

Hearing

• Check you have subtitles for any important speech or sounds
• Add images, videos and sub-headings to break up content
• Consider using closed captions for videos as these can be enabled or disabled per the user’s requirements

Vision

• Ensure all non-text elements (images/videos) have a text alternative
• Use headings in a logical order
• Ensure that link descriptions are informative and correct

Read more about International Day for Persons with Disabilities by following #IDPD2019 on twitter.