If you run a blog or online business, you’ll want to make sure your site conforms to the latest design standards. These include accessibility principles that apply to all websites. However, you may be wondering: What is Universal Design, and how can I use it on my WordPress site?
Fortunately, universal design is a straightforward concept. Basically, it is about creating websites that are accessible to users with different abilities and needs. Once you understand how it works, you can incorporate it into your site to create a more inclusive user experience.
What is Universal Design?
WordPress is a user-friendly platform that enables you to build a custom website without learning to code. However, it is important that every page of your site adheres to key design principles such as universality. So, let’s start by answering the question, what is Universal Design?
In web development, universal design is the practice of creating websites that are accessible and usable by all users, regardless of their physical and cognitive abilities. However, you can also say that universal design takes into account users from different geographic and cultural backgrounds.
To understand what universal design is, let’s take a look at web accessibility. In theory, every website should provide equal access to its content. This means that even users with visual impairments or other disabilities should be able to interact with a site.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) It was created to help web developers and site owners conform to these standards. WCAG too Prioritizes Inclusion In web design, addressing issues such as age, language, computer literacy, geographic location, and culture.
Therefore, universal design encompasses both accessibility and inclusion. This means that users must be able to access and interact with the site (including people with disabilities) and must be able to understand the content (regardless of their linguistic background).
How to implement Universal Design in WordPress
Now that we know what Universal Design is, let’s look at how to implement it on your WordPress website.
- Use a translation-ready theme
- enable keyboard navigation
- Avoid difficult language and specifics
- add alt text to images
- Use adequate color contrast and clear fonts
1. Use a translation-ready theme
As mentioned earlier, part of incorporating universal design is ensuring that users can understand the content, even if they speak a different language. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you have to manually translate your site into multiple languages.
Creating a multilingual WordPress site is quite easy. However, before you get started, you’ll want to make sure you’re using a translation-ready theme.
There are many free themes that provide this feature. If you are browsing the WordPress theme directory, you can click on feature filter press the button, and select translation ready,
It’s important to note that choosing a translation-ready theme will not automatically make your site available in other languages. However, the theme will be coded in such a way that it is able to translate its various elements (such as buttons and titles).
you may also want to select rtl language support as a feature filter. This will enable you to translate your theme into right-to-left languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Farsi.
If you are in need of such a theme, check out Nave, This is one of the most popular topics in the directory overall.
Once you’ve chosen a translation-ready theme, you can easily translate your site using a plugin like translation press, The tool integrates with Google Translate, so can set up automatic translations using your Google API key.
2. Enable keyboard navigation
An important aspect of universal design is to serve users with physical disabilities. For example, users with neurological disorders may be unable to use a mouse. Therefore, you’ll want to make sure they can easily navigate your website with a keyboard.
There are a number of accessibility tools that provide this feature, including Web Accessibility by AccessIB,
This plugin uses an AI-powered application to enable keyboard navigation on your site. This AI program will analyze your site structure and add keyboard functionality to all relevant elements such as buttons, forms, and menus.
3. Avoid difficult language and specifics
The universal design may also apply to the type of language used on the site. If you cater to the needs of a global audience, a large proportion of your visitors will not be familiar with region-specific idioms or nuances. Therefore, you might want to stick to “universal” English.
Also, many of your customers will have an intermediate level of English, so you’ll want to use clear and concise language. Even if a user speaks English as a first language, they may still be unfamiliar with certain Americanisms or British expressions.
Additionally, your customers will come from a wide variety of backgrounds. For example, if you have a legal site, users with higher levels of education may already be familiar with some legal terminology. However, some will require an explanation of these concepts.
It’s also important that all text in key elements of your site, such as menus and call-to-action buttons, be written in clear language. This will make your content even more accessible, allowing users to understand the structure of your site.
4. Add alt text to images
Alternative text (in brief) alternate text) is usually a sentence that describes an image on a page. While this helps search engines better understand the content on that page, it also makes your images accessible to users with visual impairments. This is because alt text is read aloud by screen readers.
Ideally, you should add alt text to every image on your website. The process is very simple. In fact, you can add it directly from the block editor.
Just select an image then go to block settings and write the description Alt text Field:
You can also add alt text to images from the Media Library. When writing this text, it is important to be descriptive and clearly state what is in the image.
5. Use adequate color contrast and clear fonts
Another way to make your site more universal is by using the right colors on your site. Users with visual impairments may find it a bit challenging to read text on a web page, especially if there is not enough color contrast between background and foreground elements.
If you’re designing a page or post in the block editor, you’ll see a warning if your color combination makes the content hard to read:
Ideally, you’ll want to use a light background and dark text (or vice versa). you can also use WebAIM Contrast Checker To test your colors:
This tool shows you the contrast ratio between your selected colors. It will also tell whether they meet WCAG accessibility guidelines. WCAG recommends a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text to ensure optimal legibility.
Conclusion
Hopefully after reading this you now have an answer to the question “What is Universal Design?” To give you a quick recap, the universal design enables users to access and interact with a website regardless of their physical and cognitive abilities or their cultural background. This includes the elements of access and inclusion, as outlined by the WCAG.
Here’s how to make your site more universal:
- Use a translation-ready theme.
- Enable keyboard navigation.
- Avoid difficult language and specifics.
- Add alt text to images.
- Use sufficient color contrast.
