Part 2 with Michael Dowden and it’s all about accessibility. Michael Dowden is co-author of “Approachable Accessibility: Planning for Success” available now on 

Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/Approachable-Accessibility-Planning-Martine-Dowden/dp/1484248805

Today on Luckygirl: A Bite-sized Podcast for Solopreneurs he discusses the importance of accessibility, how users use assistive devices to help them navigate websites, and tips you can use right now to take an audit of your own website.

Tips for auditing your website: Push the mouse to the side and just use keystrokes.

Can users still access key information?

Keyboard access is important. 

Are their pop-ups that are obstructing the view?

Consider transcripts for your podcasts. 

Consider captions on your videos.

Screen readers are assistive devices that take the text on the page and they interpret the structure of the page. So you must name common elements like navigation, content, sidebar content, to identify the areas for screen readers. 

Make sure the heading levels are in order.

An image must have an alt text to describe the rest of the text around it. 

Color Contrast to help users who may have color blindness, as an example. Make sure the information can be processed and read to differentiate the contrast between the elements on the screen.

Make sure the background is not too noisy Google has a materials design library that can be used for resources

Follow @mrdowden on twitter andromeda16.com

Buy the book 

https://www.amazon.com/Approachable-Accessibility-Planning-Martine-Dowden/dp/1484248805