All Things Web

Making your web site an accessible one is really an easy thing to do with proper planning and effort. There are a few areas to focus on when drawing up a plan to convert your web site to a fully accessible web site.

Initially, you need to make sure that you have a plan for content, and the organization of that content in a clear and understandable way. The key to a successful and accessible web site is simple, easy to follow navigation and organization of your information.

Your site should be broken into perhaps a few main category areas with the rest of the information and content organized neatly within those. Always attempt to keep navigation simple by reducing the number of levels that contain information. Only use deepening levels of content where necessary. By simplifying your content levels you can simplify navigation and in turn increase the accessibility of your web site.

Once you’ve decided on your content categories, you should begin to think about page layout. We recommend following a simple layout structure that is “prettied up” by CSS. At the top of your page should be a “header” section that will include your logo and H1 tag. Next should be a “main navigation” area that will provide text based links to the main categories you defined earlier and your about and contact pages. Following your navigation area should be your section containing your “main content”. This is where the bulk of your information should be found.

Rounding out your page layout should be a “sub navigation” area that will contain text links to the information in your subcategories. This will obviously change based on the page that a visitor is on and the category they are in. Finally, your page should contain a footer that closes the page and offers text link access to some key points of information including Copyright, Sitemap, and Contact Links at a minimum, and more information can be placed here as needed.

These areas round out the on page layout and by using this structure you can ensure a well layed out page providing your visitors solid access to the information on your web site.

Now that we have decided on your content layout and structure it is time to begin thinking about producing the actual pages of your web site. Each page should have these items on them and each should be unique for each and every page.

1. Title Tag
2. Meta Description Tag
3. Meta Keywords Tag
4. Header Section with H1 Tag and Logo
5. Main Navigation Section with Text Links
6. Main Content Area with Additional H Tags as necessary to break up content.
7. Sub Navigation Section for Category Navigation
8. Footer Section with links to Copyright Information, Contact Information and Sitemap

While these are just the basics and there are more items needed to optimize accessibility of your page, by following this structure your web site will be well on the path to conforming to the WAI. You can test the accessibility of your web site here.  In our next article we’ll show you how to keep your web site accessible.