What Makes a Website Accessible for Different Types of Brains?
Introduction
This is an excerpt from Delightful Sites — a weekly email series helping therapists, coaches, and entrepreneurs build sustainable, values-aligned businesses, through the power of website marketing. 💐
A book that left an impact on me this year was UNSEEN: How I Lost My Vision but Found My Voice. It’s a memoir about the challenges of being a blind woman in an ableist world.
The author, Molly Burke, is a speaker and advocate who describes herself as “a typical sushi and makeup loving millennial girl who just so happens to be blind.”
The foreword of UNSEEN mentions that the book uses a type of font that is visually accessible for many people, due to the size, spacing and style of the font. It’s different from what’s typically used in printed books these days… and it means that UNSEEN gets to be read and enjoyed by as many people as possible.
UNSEEN helped me understand accessibility in a deeper way. Now, it informs the way I build websites for therapists, coaches, and practitioners like you.
There are intentional choices that can make a website more or less accessible - for folks across the spectrum of processing styles, sensory needs, neurotypes, and disabilities.
Let’s break it down.
🎨 In terms of design, accessibility can mean:
🌱 easy-to-read fonts (instead of cursive scripts that might look elegant, but that people have to squint to make out what it says)
🌱 a color palette that is visually soothing & non-overwhelming, and meets the accessibility standards of this color contrast checker
🌱 adding clear, back-end descriptions to images on your website, so that people using screen-readers (who may be visually impaired) can still read what the website images look like
[As a bonus: clear & accurate image descriptions – like, therapy office with armchair, blue couch, and rainbow rug, in Seattle, Washington – help Google & AI bots understand the content of your website. This boosts your website’s “performance score”, which is like getting an A+ report card from Google. Higher scores = more visibility for your website.]
✏️ In terms of copywriting, accessibility can mean:
🌱 presenting information in a clear and organized way (instead of vague and scattered, which can cause confusion & overwhelm)
🌱 using headings in a structured and logical way on each page of your website
Headings (H1, H2, H3, and H4) help break up big chunks of text, and make your website easier to skim. This is helpful for folks w/ fluctuating attention spans.
Headings should present sections of information in order of importance. For example:
H1: Art therapy for teens in Boston, Massachusetts [insert 2-3 paragraphs]
H2: How does art therapy work? [insert 2-3 paragraphs]
H3: What to expect during an art therapy session [insert 2-3 paragraphs]
☝🏽 This list is just the beginning. There is so much more - but I’ll end with this:
Creating accessible spaces – digital, physical, and beyond – is so important. It makes more people feel welcome. It opens doors. It invites connection… and in the case of your business, it allows your services to reach the people who may need it most.
As there are a variety of ways to be accessible (or inaccessible), I don’t wish to claim that any website can be 100% accessible for everyone. (That would be challenging to prove - though it is a goal worth striving for.)
Rather, I want to invite us to prioritize accessibility as much as we prioritize conversion rates, how many clicks we’re getting on Google, or how pretty the design looks. Because it actually all ties together - these features aren’t separate from each other.
A more accessible website is more enjoyable to navigate, and therefore more likely to connect & convert into clients.
How do you feel about the current accessibility of your website? What comes to mind when you think about website accessibility?
Your website bestie,
Liz
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