It’s 2021, and web accessibility is no longer a “nice to have” feature of your website or mobile app. By now, we know how poorly designed software impacts users with a variety of limitations or disabilities. And ongoing court decisions show the expansion of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to include online accessibility is coming sooner rather than later.
But for ministries, avoiding litigation isn’t the primary reason you should be thinking about accessibility on your digital properties. We firmly believe loving and serving people well means accounting for these needs as you’re building websites and apps. We’d even go so far as to say ignoring these needs deliberately snubs those who need accommodations and harms the gospel message.
We’ll dive deeper into why accessibility is important to your ministry plus some easy steps for improving accessibility. But first, let’s talk about what web accessibility means.
What is Web Accessibility?
Web accessibility is the inclusive practice of ensuring there are no barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites on the World Wide Web by people with physical disabilities, situational disabilities, and socio-economic restrictions on bandwidth and speed. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, generally all users have equal access to information and functionality.
Wikipedia
As humans, our skills, abilities, and intellect cover a wide spectrum. Small type on a page or highly animated websites work for those toward the middle of the spectrum. But they can pose challenges for those with visual or cognitive disabilities. Similarly, users who rely on screen readers can struggle to navigate a site that isn’t properly built for this technology, making the content impossible to access.
If your ministry is delivering services or content digitally, accessibility simply can’t be ignored. It’s easy to think your site is performing just fine if you’re not hearing from people otherwise; however, it could be people are simply clicking away in search of those resources elsewhere. In this way, you may be creating an echo chamber of the average person while ignoring the needs of those outside the average.
Areas to consider for web accessibility
There are five primary areas of impairments to consider for web accessibility:
- Visual—a loss of vision beyond what can be corrected by glasses or contacts, including blindness, loss of central or peripheral vision, blurriness, light sensitivity, haziness, color blindness, etc.
- Auditory—the partial or total inability to hear, whether constant or fluctuating, including deafness, tinnitus, trouble hearing specific frequencies, sounds that are muffled, soft, or too loud, etc.
- Neurological—conditions impacting the brain or nervous system, including autism, epilepsy, migraines, etc. that may be exacerbated by visual or audio stimulation.
- Cognitive—conditions that impact how people process and comprehend information, including ADHD, mental health disorders, dementia, learning disabilities, etc.
- Motor—weakness or limitation in motor skills or muscular control, including tics or tremors, amputation, arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc.
Web accessibility guidelines
To help address these areas, the Web Accessibility Initiative has published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These guidelines are the leading authority on accessibility and are organized around four principles:
Perceivable: Can users perceive the content? Just because something is perceivable with one sense, such as sight, doesn’t mean all users can perceive it.
Operable: Can users use UI components and navigate the content? For example, someone who can’t use a mouse or touch screen cannot operate something that requires a hover interaction.
Understandable: Can users understand the content? Can users understand the interface and is it consistent enough to avoid confusion?
Robust: Can a wide variety of user agents (browsers) consume the content? Does it work with assistive technology?
These principles, and the accompanying questions, can help guide the accessibility conversation as you look for practical ways to make your site more accessible.
The 5 Reasons Accessibility Matters for Your Digital Ministry
Loving and serving people well includes building accessible digital properties. But let’s dive deeper into the other reasons accessibility matters for your ministry:
1. It’s necessary for providing services
If you’re serving people through content, services, or tools on your site, it’s imperative those be accessible to the people who need them. Here are three questions to ask yourself:
Can users engage with the content? For broadcast ministries, such as Truth For Life, the content is their ministry. Video captions, transcripts, and easy-to-use video and audio players remove barriers for the vision- or hearing-impaired as well as an older audience that may not be as proficient with technology.
Can users interact with the services? Similarly, if your ministry is offering teaching, counseling, online small groups, or other services, how accessible are those services? They should be easy to navigate. Buttons and other interactive elements should function on a variety of screens. This includes creating target areas that are easy for people to click regardless of their device.
Can users request assistance? If your ministry provides tools and resources—for example, a ministry that facilitates housing for an at-risk group—the process should be accessible for those with special use cases. The instructions and workflow should be easy to understand and navigate. Forms, applications, and other resources should work with screen readers or when the screen is zoomed.
2. It allows you to connect with supporters and donors
In addition to facilitating your ministry, an accessible site also helps you connect with supporters and donors. Many nonprofit ministry organizations rely on volunteering and donations. Accessibility concerns can create barriers for those who want to support the work you’re doing.
Incorporating third-party tools such as a volunteer management app is one way to ensure the tools on your site are accessible. Similarly, accessible forms facilitate donations. This means providing clear instructions, labeling and validating form fields, and providing clear success and error notifications.
3. It creates a welcoming environment
While it’s almost certainly not your intention, when you ignore accessibility concerns, it projects the idea that you’re not interested in serving or partnering with those with special needs. If you haven’t added captions to videos, formatted pages to work correctly with a screen reader, or made the font size and contrast easy to read, you’re turning away people who need those accommodations.
And the opposite is true as well: paying attention to accessibility concerns and incorporating those into your user interface (UI) tells visitors your ministry values people from across the spectrum. Which leads us to number four…
4. It helps spread awareness of your ministry
When your tools are accessible, the people who need those accommodations can and will share them with others in their communities. Rather than narrowing your appeal to those with average abilities, you widen your circle. This opens the door for more people to benefit from and partner with you in your work.
5. It’s better for everyone
And finally, accessibility truly is better for everyone. The tools we rely on for accessibility don’t only enhance the experience for those who need them; they make websites and apps more usable for everyone.
For example, a focus on readability might include a larger font; lots of white space; short, left-aligned paragraphs; high contrast; etc. Those accommodations make the content accessible to those with visual or cognitive impairments. But they also make the reading experience more pleasant for everyone, preventing eye strain and enabling skimming.
Investing in accessibility can feel like a sunk cost that may or may not reach additional people. But when it’s done right, you’re serving all of your users. So how do we do this?
3 Ways to Improve Your Web or Mobile App’s Accessibility
The good news is there are easy ways to make your web or mobile app more accessible. Just like the needs we’re addressing, accessibility is a spectrum. Each step you take to make your site more accessible moves you forward toward this goal.
The WCAG define three positive ratings: A (the very minimum you should strive for) to AAA (perfect accessibility). Realistically, the painstaking work required to reach an AAA rating means many sites won’t see the benefit of seeking this top-tier rating. But if you aim to start at A or AA and continue to iterate as new technology and practices become available, you’ll be serving your users well.
1. Use HTML the way it’s meant to be used
HTML is inherently good for accessibility. When you use HTML properly, the structure and tags enable your site to be accessible. This includes telling screen readers how to progress through the content and labeling different elements appropriately.
Your first step is to make sure you’re using HTML the way it’s supposed to be used. You can do this by auditing your existing digital properties via automated tools or by hiring a consultant. As you’re building new features or properties, there are also tools that will audit as you build and at the testing stage.
2. Ensure keyboard friendliness
Once you’ve verified your HTML structure, you can test this by attempting to navigate your website with just your keyboard. This helps you experience the site in the same way people using assistive technologies do. When you get stuck, either because tab takes you to a different place than you were expecting or you can’t access a button with your keyboard, you’ll know where improvements are needed.
3. Build for responsiveness and zooming
Responsive web design and mobile-first development are good for SEO, usability, and accessibility. They naturally include generous button sizes, touch functions, and accommodations for browser squashing.
To test your site’s responsiveness, zoom in using the keyboard (CTRL-+ on PC and ⌘-+ on Mac) and see if things break. Are elements where they’re meant to be? Is all of the content still on the screen? Are you needing to scroll in unexpected places?
Start with the three items above and you’re well on your way towards a more accessible and welcoming site.
When it comes to accessibility, the perfect truly is the enemy of the good. Trying to overhaul everything to reach an accessibility goal is understandably overwhelming. But that shouldn’t stop you from making beneficial changes right away. Start today by asking yourself how accessible your site is right now and how you could realistically improve. And then push yourself to go just a little bit further to serve more people!