Accessibility Guide for Website Redesign and Rebranding
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Redesigning or rebranding your website is the perfect time to make your digital content more accessible to people with disabilities. Learn the benefits of redesigning with accessibility in mind and which features to include below.
Redesigning your website not only allows you to fix performance problems or create more visually appealing content. It’s also the perfect opportunity to create more accessible, inclusive online experiences for all users — particularly those with disabilities.
Prioritizing digital accessibility in your website redesign and following best practices enables you to avoid barriers that might prevent people with disabilities from accessing and engaging with your content. You’ll also open the door to a huge audience base — one that is highly loyal and controls over $13 trillion in disposable income.
Reaching a wider audience is just one reason accessibility is so important during website redesign. Below, we’ll explore additional reasons why accessibility matters, as well as which accessibility features should be included in your new brand design.
Why Does Accessibility Matter During Rebranding?
The purpose of a website redesign or rebrand is to improve the experience for all users. Redesigning without accessibility defeats much of the purpose of the project. You may be inadvertently introducing new user interface (UI) issues that can result in legal action.
The accessibility standards included in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) ensure your website redesign is compliant with legal requirements outlined in non-discrimination laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the European Accessibility Act (EAA), and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). Failing to comply with these laws can result in legal action — including lawsuits and demand letters — that can be expensive, reputation-damaging, and undermine the entire purpose of your redesign project.
Beyond legal compliance, keeping accessibility in mind during your redesign processes makes your content available to a wider range of users. Consider this: the disability community has a population of roughly 1.3 billion people. Many of these users rely on assistive technologies like screen readers or accessibility features like video captions or alt text to interact with digital content. If your digital content doesn’t include these features, you’re failing to attract a huge population of potential customers.
Accessibility doesn’t just improve the user experience for users with disabilities, either. People without disabilities also benefit from accessibility features like clear and consistent navigation, optimized color contrast, and adaptable layouts, leading to higher engagement and satisfaction.
An ongoing commitment to accessibility — even in the midst of a rebranding effort — positively impacts your brand reputation. Today’s consumers are more socially conscious, value organizations with the same ideals, and can help you stand out in a crowded marketplace. Creating a more accessible, inclusive website shows you value all users and are invested in creating an equitable online experience.
Accessibility Factors to Consider During Website Redesign
The benefits of an accessible website redesign are extensive — what we mentioned above is a small glimpse. As you’re designing your new site, keep the four principles of accessible design in mind. These guidelines, also known as the POUR principles, help you design and develop more accessible content.
Put simply, for digital content to be accessible, it should be:
- Perceivable: All information and UI components should be presentable and perceivable to all users.
- Operable: All users, regardless of their ability, should be able to use digital content.
- Understandable: Users should be able to understand how to operate your website.
- Robust: Content should be robust enough so that all users — including assistive technology users — can interact with and interpret it reliably.
Examples of Accessible Website Design Elements
The POUR principles are a bit broad, so let’s look at how to apply them in practice. Here’s a few examples of accessible design elements in your web redesign:
- Choose an accessible color palette: Changing up your brand’s color palette is a standard part of rebranding. However, you’ll want to choose a color palette that fits with your brand identity but doesn’t make your website inaccessible. WCAG recommends using a 4.5:1 color contrast ratio to ensure individuals with visual disabilities or impairments (e.g., low vision or color blindness) can distinguish between various web elements. A color contrast checker can help you balance luminance, backgrounds, and color spacing. Check out these accessible color palettes as an example.
- Create an accessible website architecture: Redoing your site’s structure to tell a better story is common in website redesign. As you’re making these adjustments, however, keep accessibility in mind. Most individuals with disabilities use screen readers to navigate digital content. Your new site structure should be compatible with these devices and be navigable via keyboard commands and shortcuts. Consistent navigation across pages and clear sitemaps can help with this.
- Include user-friendly web page content: Any new content you introduce in your website redesign should be user-friendly, meaning it should be easy to find, navigate, and consume for all users. Semantic HTML, the proper use of headings, accessible typography or fonts, and clear page layouts all add to the user-friendliness of your web content and help make it more accessible.
Each of these accessibility features adds to the accessibility of your redesigned website, optimizing the overall experience and helping you comply with accessibility requirements.
For a more comprehensive list of accessible design best practices, check out our guide: “A Complete Guide to Accessible Web Design.”
How to Ensure Your New Website is Accessible
Redesigning or rebranding your website is exciting. It’s also an opportunistic time to turn a routine update into a powerful statement of inclusivity and social responsibility. Prioritizing accessibility in your redesign process not only helps you stay compliant with legal standards but also broadens your audience reach, improves overall usability, and strengthens your reputation.
The best way to integrate accessibility into your redesign: AudioEye. We provide numerous solutions for testing and optimizing your digital content for accessibility:
Accessibility Audit
AudioEye’s Web Accessibility Scanner sheds light on how accessible your existing content is, creating a perfect opportunity to work remediations into your new design. Our Automated Fixes can automatically remedy common accessibility issues, such as missing alt text or poor color contrast. To further increase accessibility, our team of human experts (which includes individuals with disabilities) audit your content further, identifying more complex accessibility barriers and providing remediation recommendations.
Developer Tools
As developers are testing new code, AudioEye gives them a secure place to test for accessibility. Our Developer Tools can be used to test code for accessibility in a pre-production environment, giving them the chance to fix issues before they impact your users.
Accessibility Training
AudioEye’s Foundations of Digital Accessibility course not only discusses common accessibility barriers but also design best practices, accessibility laws, and more. With our Accessibility Training, you’ll have all the knowledge needed to create accessible digital content — no matter how many times you redesign your site.
Explore how AudioEye can bring accessibility to your website redesign or rebranding and schedule a demo.
Want to see how accessible your existing digital content is? Enter the URL of your digital content in the scanner below and see where you can enhance accessibility.
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