Free ebook – Best practices for great web accessibility
We wrote a free accessibility book for beginners, especially those working in marketing or content creation, explaining how you can make your content more accessible.
There are also guides for developers explaining how to find and fix the top accessibility issues we found through our extensive accessibility testing in the Silktide Index.
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It depends. Not what you wanted to hear? That’s ok. Read on and we’ll explain.
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Is your alt text implementation actually making your site worse?
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Four main guideline changes are coming in WCAG 2.2’s Working Draft.
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Last year we checked thousands of websites for accessibility? Did things get better?
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PDFs suck and you shouldn’t use them. Find out why.
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Learn accessibility with our collection of articles, hints, tips, webinars, and videos.
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Accessibility benefits everyone and I’ve committed to learning how to embed it into the digital projects I work on.
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‘How do I make my PDFs accessible’ is one of our most often-asked questions. Here’s an answer.
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Understand why you need an accessibility statement and how to structure it.
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How does a more accessible website make business sense?
Accessibility data
We analyzed 6554 websites for accessibility issues.
Our data shows that worldwide public sector sites perform significantly better than privately-operated sites.
Video Transcript
Wuh-cag, W-cag, W-C-A-G… The way you say it varies, but the rules are universal. Did I say rules? They’re actually guidelines. Insert a witty pirate joke here.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are a list of rules- just go with it… -for making the web available to everyone. This may seem daunting at first, but I’m going to walk you through it.
You often hear or see things like “You must be compliant with WCAG 2.1” What does that even mean? Let’s break it down a little.
WCAG has a standard like 1.0 or 2.1, and a level that’s A, AA, or AAA. At Silktide, we like to say that A is must do, AA should do, and AAA is… reaching for the stars.
So when the legal requirement is WCAG 2.1 AA, it means it’s using the latest standard (2.1) and level AA (the middle one). AA is tougher to master, but still well within the reality of the web today.
All the guidelines are numbered, like 1.4.1 Use of Color. This is a single A requirement and it covers a fair bit of ground. Inside that guideline are success criteria. One such criterion is “Links must be distinguished by more than just color”. We have a video on that topic in this series! But it also covers things like not using color for instructions, like “Red fields are required” or making visuals like pie charts with no labels or patterns to discern the segments.
See, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Now go tell your friends!
Everyone deserves access to the internet if you need help getting your website up to scratch, visit silktide.com
Video series
Don’t be afraid of…
A series of short educational videos to help you understand various accessibility terminology and techniques.
Accessibility webinars
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Practical demonstrations of assistive technologies.
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A non-technical introduction to web accessibility aimed at content producers.
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A technical guide to building accessible navigation, including code examples.
Silktide Index
How accessible is your industry?
The Silktide Index is our monthly league table of global accessibility across multiple sectors and industries.
Legislation
Help with meeting your legal obligations
Organizations are subject to accessibility legislation across the world, depending on their location and sector.
The EU Web Accessibility Directive, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act are just three such legislations.
The consequences for non-compliance can be severe, but from a moral standpoint, making your website accessible is the right thing to do.
