Five basic website accessibility checks

Here are five easy things to check on your website to make sure it’s accessible:

Accessible images. Right click on an image and select properties to make sure there is an alternative text description provided. Alternative text (known as alt text) can help a person with sight loss to access images.
Bad links. Pick a page and look at the links to make sure that they make sense out of context. A common example of a poor link is: ‘click here’. A person using screen reading software can browse the links on a page as a list. Links like ‘click here’ often make no sense without the surrounding text.
Good titles. Check a few pages on the website to make sure that each one has a unique title (found in the title bar right at the top of the browser window). Unique page titles can help a person with sight loss to navigate the site more easily.
Map check. Check for a good site map for your website. This can be very useful for navigation.
Checking the code. Use an automated checking service like the free W3C Markup validation service by entering your websites address. The service checks the computer code behind the website to make sure it is well written. Poorly written code can interfere with accessibility software and make it much harder to use your website.