Tips to Make Your Website Accessible for Colour-Blind People
In the United Kingdom, over 3 million people have some form of colour vision deficiency.
Businesses in the UK must ensure that their websites and digital content are accessible to everyone, including those with colour blindness. This means that all users should be able to navigate and use the content without any barriers.
Businesses need to consider the needs of all individuals, regardless of their visual impairments. Businesses can reach more people and improve user experience by making their websites and digital content more inclusive and ‘accessible’.
Colour plays an important role in delivering information to people. Picking the right colours not only makes your content look better, but also helps color blind people understand important information.
But how to build your website accessibility strategy and make your content accessible to visually impaired users?
Keep in mind that accessibility will help you not only promote inclusivity but also contribute to the success of your business
Types of Colour Vision Deficiency
Colour deficiency is not related to the clarity of vision. It is about cone cells perceiving colours differently. There are 3 main groups of colour vision deficiency: Red-green colour vision deficiency, blue-yellow colour vision deficiency, and complete colour vision deficiency.
● Red-green Colour Vision Deficiency
Red-green colour deficiency is the most common type of colour vision deficiency. It has 4 main types: Deuteranomaly, Protanomaly, Protanopia, and Deuteranopia.
Deuteranomaly results in green to appear as a shade of red. Protanomaly causes red to appear as a shade of green. Colours are seen as less vibrant overall. In the cases of Protanopia and Deuteranopia, people can’t differentiate between red and green colours.
● Blue-yellow Colour Vision Deficiency
In the case of blue-yellow colour deficiency, it becomes hard for people to differentiate between blue and yellow and other close colours. It has 2 main types: Tritanomaly and Tritanopia.
Tritanomaly results in the difficulty of differentiating blue and green, and yellow and red. Tritanopia makes it difficult to differentiate between colours like pin/yellow, green/blue, and red/purple.
● Complete Colour Vision Deficiency
Complete colour vision deficiency, or monochromacy, is much rarer than the first two types of colour vision deficiency. It leads to the inability to distinguish colours at all.
How to Make Your Website Accessible for Colour-Blind People
Accessible web design is not only a desirable feature, but also a legal obligation for any business in the UK. To make your business website accessible to everyone, including people who suffer from colour deficiency, you need to perform an accessibility audit based on UK legislation.
Overall, the UK follows the internationally recognised Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), considered the gold standard for web accessibility.
Two primary pieces of the UK web accessibility legislation you need to consider while creating your business website are the Equality Act of 2010 and the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations of 2018.
To ensure complete accessibility, any UK business should develop websites in accordance with the 4 main principles known as POUR (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust).
Simply being familiar with accessibility guidelines is not enough. Every business must also consider certain tips when designing its website to ensure it provides inclusive digital experiences.
Here are the key tips you can use to achieve this goal:
Don’t Rely Only on Colour to Convey Information
When speaking about colour deficiency, many people concentrate only on colours. However, relying only on colour for conveying information is not enough.
So, the first rule is: don’t depend only on colours for conveying information. Use different elements to deliver your main message. Such elements on a web page can include error messages, icons, symbols, etc.
Ensure Sufficient Colour Contrast
The colour contrast of a website measures the variation in brightness between its text and background components. While some colour combinations may seem visually pleasing, they might not be user-friendly. Before finalising your website colour contrast choices, look for the accessibility guidelines.
Ensure that your business website features optimal colour contrast. Pay close attention to adjusting brightness, tone, and colour combinations. Remember, it is important to accurately adjust brightness levels when contrasting colours; otherwise, website elements could appear blurred or difficult to discern.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines define content ratios you should keep up with. For example, for normal texts and images, the ratio should be 4.5:1, and 3:1 for the larger ones.
Use Descriptive Labels for Links and Buttons
Add short but descriptive labels for the links and buttons. To strike the balance of being informative keep the length of the text up to 5 words. For example, use “Find out more about our company” instead of “Read more”.
Overall the description should represent the summary of the page the link directs to.
Avoid Several Colour Combinations
The right colour combinations are the key to accessible websites for colour blind people.
Choosing a colour palette that takes into account colour blindness and includes accessible colours doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice aesthetics or eliminate all colours from your charts.
If you plan carefully, you can easily incorporate a colour blind-friendly palette into your design, making sure it complements rather than conflicts with your overall aesthetic.
Always have a pre-planned colour strategy. There are certain colour combinations that you should exclude from your website. Those colour combinations include:
❌ Blue and green
❌ Red and green
❌ Brown and green
❌ Black and green
❌Gray and green
❌Purple and blue
❌Gray and blue
❌Light green and yellow.
In cases when you can not avoid using the mentioned colour combinations, offer alternative methods for conveying information, such as subtitles, labels, focus elements, or icons.
Go for Minimalism
Minimalism in the website design emphasizes clear and easily readable typography.
Use large fonts and high-contrast colours to enhance readability and navigation for colour blind people.
Minimalism features simple and consistent navigation menus, simplifying the browsing experience.
Avoid using too many colour combinations. It is better to use 2 colours that have different levels of lightness. The most efficient colour combination you can use to keep the website accessible and minimalistic is blue and red or blue and orange.
These combinations not only enhance accessibility for people with colour deficiencies but also help you achieve a more professional, and aesthetically pleasing design through a minimalist approach.
Use Labels
Using labels on your website improves the clarity and makes the navigation easier.
It is especially important to add labels to your website when the main information is based on colour distinction.
For example, if your website includes products in different colours, providing labels for each option can help users recognise their choices and make well-informed purchasing decisions.
The best part is that in addition to accessibility, labels can significantly boost your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) rankings. With the bots provided by labels contain important information about your website. The more descriptive labels, the better accessibility and SEO rankings.
Organise Content with Headings
Headings are created to visually stand out as larger and more prominent than the rest of the textual content on the website.
Screen reader users can easily move around a webpage using its headings. By accessing a list of all headings on the page, they can quickly jump to a specific section to start reading from there. This helps them skip unnecessary content like headers, menus, and sidebars, making their browsing experience smoother and more efficient.
Make sure to make your headings larger than the rest of the text. Ideally, you can use another typeface to make it stand out more.
It is important not to rely on colours to make your headings more prominent than the body text.
Use Bold
It may be easier for colour-blind people to see thick and distinct lines. Avoid using any thin strips of colour, do not use small text and ensure that links stand out from the rest of the text and are easy to notice. This way, you can improve visual clarity and guide the user’s attention.
For example, you can use bold lines beneath the main call-to-action (CTA) to help the users grasp what steps to take next without any confusion.
Ask an Expert to Check Your Platform
When it comes to making a business website more accessible to people with any type of disability, it is not a task to tackle solo. It is hard to monitor and find all the nuances.
So, it is recommended to ask an expert to check your platform. They can help you to follow the UK accessibility standards and offer efficient methods to improve the inclusivity and overall benefit of your website for your business.
Conclusion
Developing business websites that are easy to use for colour-blind users is a key aspect of the overall accessibility strategy.
If you follow our guidelines for developing a colour blind-friendly website, you can enhance user experience, drive more traffic to your site, and help create a more inclusive online environment for users with any form of disability.
Ensuring your website is accessible to colour-blind users is not just about inclusivity; it’s about enhancing user experience and expanding your reach.
At h2o-digial, we specialise in creating visually appealing, highly functional websites that cater to the needs of all users, including those with colour vision deficiencies.
By choosing us, you’re not only investing in a website that looks great but also one that is accessible to everyone, helping you to build a more inclusive and welcoming online presence.
Trust our expertise to make your website a space where everyone can interact seamlessly and enjoyably. Contact us today to start your journey towards a more accessible and successful web presence.
