As a blind blogger myself and a screen-reader user, accessibility of blogs is so important for me, it is at the forefront of my blog and I always try to ensure that my posts and pages are fully accessible to people with a visual impairment, as well as any design or themes that I use.
The accessibility of a person’s blog is the deciding factor for me whether I stay on their blog and check it out or whether I click off, if a blog isn’t accessible then I tend to click off as it is very frustrating and time consuming to try and navigate around the inaccessible parts, it is also very problematic.
If I like a person’s blog, find their content interesting and their blog is accessible then I’ll usually stick around and explore their site, subscribe to their blog, follow them on social media and continue to visit their blog in the future.
I love discovering new bloggers, but the amount of bloggers who’s sites aren’t accessible for screen-reader users is crazy. Granted, I know that not everyone knows how to make their blog accessible, or they just haven’t thought about it.
With all of that in mind, I thought that I would write a post and share some tips on how to make your blog accessible for people with a visual impairment.
It’s important to remember that every blind and visually impaired person has different levels of vision and use a wide range of assistive technology, some blind people use screen-readers like myself, and others use magnification software.
It’s important to make your content accessible to everyone, at the end of the day, inclusivity is key.
1. Label all links and buttons
If links and buttons are labelled to say exactly what they are, for example ‘home’ or ‘search’, then blind and visually impaired people can determine what they are, either by a screen-reader reading the label out loud or the person seeing it using magnification software. Screen-readers do not read graphics as they cannot interpret them, and they can also be very hard for people with low vision to see, labelling them solves this issue.
Labelling links and buttons means that blind and visually impaired people don’t have to press a button without knowing what it is, which can often be a risky move, especially if it redirects to another site. By doing this, it means that people can navigate around your website easily.
2. Label comment forms
If You want everyone to be able to leave a comment on your site, make sure that your comment forms are labelled so that screen-readers don’t read things such as ‘edit field’ or ‘radio button’. Instead, make sure that each box is labelled correctly, for example, ‘name,’ ‘email address’ or ‘comment’.
3. Use a good size font throughout your blog
This doesn’t just only help blind and visually impaired people, it can help sighted people as well. Having a good, clear font means that your content is easy to read.
4. Have a dark font against a light background
Avoid using white, use sans-serif fonts instead. Not only does this improve accessibility and readability, it also looks good in terms of branding as well.
5. Have an audio option when using captcha verification
If you have captcha verification on your blog when submitting a comment or when someone wants to subscribe to your blog or newsletter, look at the possibility of adding an audio option. Screen-readers do not read the graphics, and they are often very hard for people with some useful vision to see. Adding an audio option gives an accessible alternative but still maintains your site’s security.
If there is no audio option, then often blind and visually impaired people like myself just click off the site as there is often no other alternative way of completing such tasks.
6. Add alt text to images
This is probably the most important one, I cannot stress this enough! The number of images that do not have alt text on blogs or websites is ridiculous. It’s such a simple thing to do and can make such a difference to a blind or visually impaired person’s visit to your website.
Alt text, also known as alternative text, is a written description of the image. Describing what’s in the image helps a person with a visual impairment to build a picture of it and interpret it in their own way, consequently being more engaged in your posts. Please make sure that you add alt text in the alt text box, rather than the description box.
Many people think that the alt text box is there to improve seo, whilst this is the case, it can be invaluable to screen-reader users. Why not try and make a photo description that still links with seo? Please do not just put your keywords in the alt text box, as this serves no purpose to blind and visually impaired people and we still have no idea what the image shows.
If you don’t know how to add alt text, then add a photo description underneath images in your posts and pages instead.
Both are really easy to do so please consider doing one or the other.
I often get asked how descriptive image descriptions need to be, and I answer this by saying describe exactly what’s in the picture and be as informative as you can.
7. Use headings
Blind and visually impaired people often navigate blogs and websites using shortcut keys. Using headings means that we can navigate around your blog easily and efficiently, being able to skip through post titles and other aspects. Adding headings also helps with readability.
8. Make link text something relevant
Rather than just putting ‘click here’, put something like ‘check out my post on…’ then people know what sort of page or website they’ll be directed to if they click the link.
9. Avoid using video and audio that starts automatically
It may look nice and sound good, but this can make it very hard for people with a visual impairment to navigate your blog. If you use video or audio that starts automatically then people who use screen-readers have to listen to this as well as their screen-reader, which can be very difficult to do. It can cause problems for people with other disabilities as well.
If you want to use video or audio on your blog, then add an option for people to click to start it if they want to, rather than it starting automatically.
10. Test your blog on different devices and browsers
The accessibility and look of your blog can often differ on various browsers and devices. Make sure that all of the features that you have implemented work on different browsers and devices. By doing this, it means that people don’t have to test several browsers to find the best one, instead, they can just use their preferred browser.
Many people read blogs whilst on the go so here’s a top tip: make sure your blog is mobile friendly!
So, there you have it, 10 things you can do to make your blog accessible.
Do you have any other tips? Feel free to leave them in the comments!
If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in contact, or leave them in the comments, I’d love to hear from you
Holly x
![Not only did I attend the 7 goal thriller between @arsenalwfc and @manutdwomen on the final day of the 2024/25 @barclayswsl season over the weekend, I was also provided with the most amazing audio descriptive commentary.
It’s no secret my love of Manchester United. I’m going to make it known now that I have a pretty big soft spot for Arsenal too.
Many of the Arsenal team are some of my favourites. It’s also clear that the club care about accessibility and inclusion for disabled supporters, something that’s extremely important to me.
And their commitment to accessibility was clear from the call I made to book tickets, right through to the match itself.
But the audio descriptive commentary scored an extra goal or two for me. Audio descriptive commentary is a rarity in the women’s game. It’s something I’ve been desperate to experience for the last few years. Now that I’ve had that experience, I can wholeheartedly say that it completely transforms the experience of the match as a blind fan. I don’t have the words to explain the feeling of inclusion it gave me.
I tried to sum it up, documenting my experience of the match over on the blog. If you’d like to give it a read, head over to lifeofablindgirl.com – a link to my blog is also in my bio.
Thanks to an epic game on the pitch and the accessibility off it, the Arsenal versus United match is by far my favourite game I’ve ever attended. I hope to be returning to the Emirates soon!
@arsenal @manchesterunited @alanmarchsport
[Image descriptions:
Image 1: Holly stood in the Emirates Stadium with a view of the pitch behind her. She’s wearing a light blue denim jacket and is smiling at the camera.
Image 2: A Manchester United player running towards the Arsenal goal in the semicircle of the penalty area. Arsenal players can be seen positioned around her.
Image 3: Two Arsenal players hugging each other after celebrating a goal. Other Arsenal players can be seen running towards them to join in the celebrations, whilst Manchester United players are walking away. The Arsenal players are wearing their red home shirts, and the Manchester United players are wearing their blue away shirts.]](https://lifeofablindgirl.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
Thank you so much for this post, Holly! I’ve started trying to make my alt text on images more descriptive and I’ll probably end up going back through my posts adding alt text to all my images. This post was super helpful x
Em ~ http://thisisemsworld.com
I’m so glad you found it useful, that’s amazing that you’re doing that! Thank you so much lovely x
Great post. I have to admit I wasn’t aware of the Alt Text thing. I’ve never put anything in that box but I will be now. I’ll also be going back to improve the accessibility of my older posts!
Really glad you found it useful. That’s amazing, thank you so much
What is seo.
I’m thinking of starting a blog then I find all these terms I don’t understand and think I’m too old to start trying this stuff when I’m still trying to learn to use technology in a new way since becoming blind two years ago
SEO is search engine optimisation, basically how search engines find and rank your posts. If it’s something you want to do then definitely go for it, you can do it 🙂
This is super helpful. VoiceOver is working nicely, but I need to work on the standard WordPress font, something that has bothered me from Day One. Thanks for the reminder.
Thank you, so glad you found it useful. No problem 🙂
Great post as always hun! I know this post will help a lot of people, it’s definitely one that was needed!xxx
Thank you so much lovely, I really hope so! Xxx
Thank you so much for this, I really want to make my blog and my you tube as accessible as possible but if you do not have those impairments it can be hard to know where to start. I have shared this out and I really hope my blog fits all the criteria I will certainly be checking asap
That’s brilliant, thank you so much! I completely get that, that’s what inspired me to write it 🙂
I’m definitely going to start using the alt text. My blog is currently a close-to-white font on a very, very dark brown background. I’ve always thought it was incredibly readable (not like purple on black or something) but I didn’t realize this could be an accessibility issue. Do screenreaders have problems with the inversions? Is it just low-contrast color choices that are a problem? I can look into changing it to black on white, I’ve just always really liked the inverted palette. (I’d be sad to see it go, but if it’s an accessibility issue, I’ll deal.)
Fantastic. Screen-readers don’t have issue with font, some people that have some useful vision might. Hope that helps 🙂
These are great tips but you should all be following DAC standards and aiming for at least AA. In fact it is a legal requirement for companies. So if you are a large influencer you may fall in to this bracket. You can find them at http://digitalaccessibilitycentre.org
GR | https://www.thegreat.uk
Thank you
Thank you for this post .
I just started using alt descriptions for SEO last week because yoast suggested it. I didn’t know about the screen reader use of it, so will start doing descriptions for new posts and eventually go back and fix old ones.
That’s great, glad you found it helpful
Thanks so much for sharing this post. I’ve been going back through all my old posts and adding the alt descriptions to all my images for awhile now – it is taking a long time, but I was happy to read that it may be helpful.
Joan
http://kindness-compassion-and-coaching.com
No problem at all. Thank you for doing that, it’s definitely worth it 🙂
Thank you for sharing all of these tips! Honestly I had no clue how to go about making my blog accessible to the visually impaired. I need to get better with my alternative text for sure and will endeavor to do so in future posts as well as updating old ones!
Thank you for sharing these tips. I never even thought of such things when setting up my blog, but I will be going through it and making sure that things are set up to allow better accessibility for those with visual impairments.
No problem at all, I’m glad it was helpful. That’s brilliant, thank you so much for doing that
sight is one of the most important that a person can have this article is really helpful thank you so much.
http://vips-guide.blogspot.com/2018/10/OrCam.html
this glasses also for visually impaired person take look it will be great help for blinds.
Thank you, no problem
I hadn’t thought about a lot of these things, you’ve really opened my eyes. I will be bookmarking this post and editing my site accordingly xx
http://www.bethemilydann.co.uk
Yay! That’s brilliant, thank you so much xx
Great post, I definitely wasn’t aware of all of those and how little tweaks can make huge different to visually impaired people to enjoy online content. I will definitely try to adjust my blog accordingly.
xx A.
https://mylondonandbeyond.wordpress.com/
Thank you, I’m glad you found it useful. That’s great, thank you for taking the time to do that xx
Great post.. I find that those with vision impairment generally adjust their font within the browser preferences/settings to increase the size. However my blog doesn’t seem to use these preferences (I don’t think your blog does either) – do you know how to setup a blog so that the text that will adjust as per the browser preferences – that way it suits more people? Any ideas? Thanks.
Thank you. I’m not sure about that sorry
Whew – after lots of googling and stressing – I found the solution. The blog template (Theme) should not contain references to font size in pixels (px) as this overrides anything the user has set. Rather there are two different ways to express font size based on the user preference, ’em’ and ‘rem’. I’m no expert and chose to stick with ’em’ – where before my Theme was set to 14px – i change it to 1em, and where set to 22px I changed it to 2em (near enough) – now my blog posts ‘work’ with user preferences. I just had to go into the guts of the default template(theme) and change these font settings… Wasn’t too bad but I was a little nervous I’d break everything else. In blogger I had to go to THEME and ‘EDIT HTML’ and find each occurrence.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for this. Thank you
Hi Holly,
I found your article doing a search for blogging platforms, other than WordPress, that work with screen readers.
As sighted people trying to develop a program for people who can’t see, your insights are valuable and used in our website design.
The reason for creating a blog is, like you, to raise awareness and to directly help visually impaired people by posting articles and stories of interest. The other reason is to document our two-year journey to develop a voice-activated program for android users.
There is only the welcoming post for now but I would really appreciate you having a look to make sure it can be read: https://speakaccess.blogspot.com/. Any suggestions you have will be most welcomed.
Have a wonderful day!!
Thank you, really hope it was helpful. I will check it out 🙂
And thank you for checking it out, Holly. The blog address is https://speakaccess.blogspot.com/.
It took some doing to get it the way I wanted, but the good news is that it can be read with a screen reader.
How someone who is blind can set up a blog is beyond my comprehension. I’ve had years and years of experience designing websites and graphics but it took me two days to figure it out!! Sheesh!! See me smile wondering if your screen reader has sheesh in it’s dictionary.
By the way, if you come across a good article or would like to write one, please let me know and I’ll share it on the blog.
Hi Holly: Your post has been so helpful with setting up my new website at lovesonsolutions.com and my new blog on WordPress. I am not blogging yet but hope to soon. I am a occupational therapist and I am designing a line of clothing for women who are blind or have low vision. My clothes are reversible, have no tags, and there is no difference between the front or back.
Thank you, so glad its been helpful. Best of luck, that all sounds great
Hi Holly: Your post has been so helpful with setting up my new website at lovesonsolutions.com and my new blog on WordPress. I am not blogging yet but hope to soon. I am a occupational therapist and I am designing a line of clothing for women who are blind or have low vision. My clothes are reversible, have no tags, and there is no difference between the front or back.
Really glad it’s been helpful! That sounds great, best of luck with it all 🙂
Thank you for this post I am building my blog at the moment and it is very important for me that everybody can access to it, that is going to be very useful. Thank you again!
No problem, hope its useful. Exciting, best of luck
Thank you so much for this! I’m going to go back through my blog and make some changes and try and get some feedback from people! Thanks again for the advice.
anothermaleblogger.com
No problem, hope you found it helpful 🙂
Great job Holly! Nice to have some confirmation about the use of Alt Tags. Is there a way of creating an audio option of a blog itself? Like having a button where the writer could read the blog to you or anything like that?
Thank you! I believe there is, but I don’t know how to do this, apologies. There definitely are accessibility tools that can do that sort of thing though
I’m also in the process of trying to make my garden blog more accessible, and am grateful to find your post.
In your advice, you state, “Describing what’s in the image helps a person with a visual impairment to build a picture of it and interpret it in their own way, consequently being more engaged in your posts.”
My instinct is to include colors in my alt text for images. To me, color is one possible aspect of how one groups various plants, so it’s more a data point in a sense though it might also help a visitor interpret an image. I think of naming colors as I would mention whether leaves are smooth edged or serrated.
Is that a proper thing to do because it’s adding as much information as one can, or would some members of the visually impaired community find the mention of color insulting?
Please advise, as I don’t want to alienate anyone while trying to be more inclusive.
That’s brilliant, thank you. I hope the post is helpful.
It’s definitely not insulting at all, describing aspects such as colour is really helpful for us
This really has been helpful. Now I feel more confident about how best to proceed adding the alt text descriptions. It’s going to take a while to fix the currently 357 images that need it on my nearing three year old garden site, but I’ll get there!
Thank you very much for your response, as it really eased my concern.
No problem at all 🙂
Great information thank you! I’m just starting a blog and with two family members who are visually impaired I want to make sure they can enjoy the blog too. Is there any benefit to having an audio file of the written post? Or do most screen readers make this not necessary? Thanks so much!!
Thank you! Personally I’d say that screen readers do the job as it’s a bit like listening to an audio file in a way. Best of luck with your blogging journey!
Thank you for these reminders. I’ve added this and your blog about social media posts to my list resources on equity concerns for communications professionals.
Thank you so much!
this was really well written. as a screen reader user, i think you have covered everything. Thank you for your efforts in raising awareness and making life a bit easier.
Thank you for your kind words, that means a lot.
Hi Holly, thanks for this straightforward post! It’s always great to hear from the people actually on the receiving end so we’re not just guessing and assuming. Do you have a screen reader to recommend so that I can put myself in your shoes when shaping out my own French food blog? Much appreciated!
Thank you!
I’m not sure what device you have, but I’d recommend Narrator on Windows, VoiceOver on Apple (iPhone, iPad and Mac), or TalkBack on Android.
Thank you for sharing these essential tips! As someone involved in digital content for DC Wine and Spirits, this post was a real eye-opener. We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our site and content, and your suggestions on alt text and font contrast were especially helpful. Keep up the great work advocating for inclusive design!
https://www.dcwineandspirits.com/
Thank you! I’m really glad they were helpful.