Accessible Coding 101: What It Is, Examples, Resources
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Accessible coding ensures digital content is accessible for individuals with disabilities. Below, we’ll discuss accessible coding best practices, how to implement them in your coding processes, and the benefits of doing so.
Code — it’s what allows us to interact with digital content. The quality of the code determines whether your digital content provides a good, intuitive, and engaging experience or a frustrating, inaccessible one. For people with disabilities, the quality of code is even more pronounced.
Accessible code makes a massive difference in individuals with disabilities’ online experience. Code that contains accessibility features like assistive technology compatibility or voice controls allows these users to interact with content more easily. Bad code results in numerous accessibility barriers, making it difficult — if not impossible — for the disability community to access information or interact with your site features.
What exactly is accessible code? We’ll review that in more detail below and provide examples of coding accessibility principles.
What is Accessible Coding?
As the name suggests, accessible coding involves writing website or application code that ensures individuals with various disabilities can use and navigate it easily. The process includes following web accessibility standards and processes such as including alternative text (alt text) for images, providing sufficient color contrast, designing for keyboard-only navigation, and more.
Semantic HTML plays a major role in creating more accessible code. Put simply, semantic HTML uses HTML elements that convey meaning and structure to users and assistive technologies. For example, semantic HTML like ‘<header>’, ‘<nav>’, ‘<button>’, and ‘<header>’, define the purpose of a web element, allowing screen readers to present website information in a logical, understandable way.
The goal of accessible coding is to create online environments that provide equal and inclusive access to information and tools for all users — regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities.
7 Examples of Coding Accessibility Principles
How is accessible coding used in actual website design and development? There are numerous ways website and app builders can bring accessibility into their code. Below are a few examples of accessible coding best practices.
1. Include an Alt Equivalent for Non-Text Components
All non-text components, such as images, sound clips, videos, graphs, and buttons, should include an alt equivalent. This feature allows them to be understood by assistive technologies like screen readers, helping users who rely on them more easily navigate the page.
For example, images should include alt text that describes what they contain for assistive technologies like screen readers to read. This is particularly beneficial for users with visual impairments (such as low vision or color blindness), as it allows them to understand the image and how it relates to the rest of the page’s content.
2. No Keyboard Traps
Keyboard traps are a coding error — they happen when a user who relies solely on keyboard navigation gets stuck in a particular element or section on a website and can’t move to another section.
To avoid this, ensure your interactive elements (buttons, links, form fields, etc.) follow a logical tab order that aligns with your visual layout. You’ll also want to ensure you use keyboard focus indicators so users can easily see their location on your site. Be sure to test your keyboard navigation to decrease the likelihood of keyboard traps. We recommend testing keyboard navigation with real assistive technology users as they can provide more helpful recommendations on where to improve navigation or workflows.
3. Resizing Text
The ability to resize text is incredibly beneficial for people with disabilities — particularly those with visual or cognitive impairments, including low vision, ADHD, or Dyslexia. It enables them to adjust content to meet their specific needs without compromising the website's or application's usability. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) also recommend that text be resized by up to 200% without losing content or functionality. This helps to maintain readability and usability across different devices and screen sizes.
4. Avoid Seizure Triggers
To avoid seizure triggers, avoid using flashing or strobing effects and limit the frequency of flashing content to fewer than three times per second. You should also give users control over animations or other dynamic content whenever possible, as this creates a more accessible and comfortable online environment.
5. Follow a Logical Reading and Code Order
Your website or mobile app should follow a logical reading and code order. The reading order should reflect the natural flow of content as users experience it, while the code order should align with the sequence so assistive technologies can interpret and present content correctly. To create this order, structure your HTML elements in a meaningful sequence, such as placing headings before paragraphs and interactive elements.
6. Use Headings Appropriately
The proper use of headings — from ‘<h1>’ to ‘<h4>’ — helps both visual and non-visual users understand how your digital content is organized and what the hierarchy of the page is. For example, a clear ‘<h1>’ should act as the page title, clearly identifying the main topic of a while ‘<h2>’ and ‘<h3>’ elements denote subtopics. Following this order helps to increase readability and makes it easier for screen reader users to navigate through your content.
7. Ensure Assistive Technology Compatibility
Finally, your digital content should include code that is accessible and understandable to assistive technologies, including screen readers, magnifiers, and voice recognition software. Doing so ensures users with disabilities can easily interact with your digital content.
To ensure compatibility, test your website or application with various assistive technologies and address any accessibility issues. This includes looking at your interactive elements, like buttons or forms, and ensuring they’re correctly labeled and accessible via keyboard navigation.
Following accessible coding principles helps developers create a more inclusive digital environment. This improves usability for individuals with disabilities and enhances the overall user experience for everyone.
The Importance of Accessible Coding and its Benefits
Bringing accessibility into your coding yields numerous benefits — for both you and your users.
One of the biggest benefits is that semantic coding enhances your website's or mobile application's adaptability and responsiveness across different devices. These elements ensure content is consistent and navigable — regardless of screen size or device type — making the content more stable and user-friendly. With users interacting with digital content on various devices, this adaptability is incredibly important.
Another benefit of accessible coding is compliance with legal standards like WCAG. Most countries use WCAG as the standard for accessibility; failing to follow these guidelines can result in legal action that can result in costly legal challenges or penalties.
Accessible coding also helps increase your SEO rankings. SEO engines favor websites that are well-structured, or that use semantic HTML, as it helps them better understand the content on the page. It can then rank it accordingly and drive more traffic to your site. You’ll then increase the reach of your website, broadening your potential user base and revenue opportunities.
Most importantly, accessible coding creates a more equitable internet. The practice ensures digital content or services are available to everyone, a fundamental right in today’s increasingly digital society.
AudioEye and Accessible Coding
Accessible coding isn’t just a best practice — it’s a transformative approach that opens the doors to a more accessible, inclusive, and user-friendly digital world. Using accessible coding in your design and development practices enhances the user experience, secures compliance with legal standards, boosts your site’s performance and rankings, and extends the reach of your audience. Beyond functionality, accessible coding creates a more inclusive online environment — one that’s welcoming to everyone.
To help you realize the benefits of accessible coding, there’s AudioEye. Using our suite of Developer Tools, you can test the accessibility of your code in a secure pre-production environment. This allows you to find and fix accessibility issues before code goes live, helping you create a positive, seamless user experience from the very beginning.
For code that’s already live, there’s our free Web Accessibility Checker. The tool scans your digital content for common accessibility issues, giving you an overview of how accessible your existing content is. We go a step further — our team of human experts carefully audits your content for more complex accessibility barriers and provides recommendations for remediation.
Ready to get started? Enter the URL of your digital content into the scanner below. Or schedule a demo to see AudioEye in action.
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