When it comes to designing your ophthalmology practice website, it’s essential to keep every patient in mind. Not everyone who visits your website has perfect vision, hearing or comprehension capabilities. Therefore, making your website accessible to those with disabilities is crucial to your private practice.
Website accessibility isn’t just about being inclusive. In fact, the Americans with Disabilities Act “requires medical practitioners to make communication and information technology, including websites, accessible to those with disabilities.”
The best ophthalmology website design is accessible to everyone, even those who may have visual, hearing, cognitive or neurological disabilities. When creating your website, put yourself in the shoes of someone who may need accommodations and see if your website stands up against that test.
To ensure your ophthalmology private practice website is both inclusive and compliant, consider the following accessibility checklist.
HIGH COLOR CONTRAST
Choose images and font colors with high color contrast. Not only is this best practice anyway, but it also enhances readability and ensures that individuals with visual impairments can access and understand the content more easily.
ALT DESCRIPTIONS
Additional image descriptions help those with visual impairments who use screen readers while navigating the Internet. As an added bonus, alt descriptions can also amplify your SEO efforts!
ACCESSIBILITY WIDGETS
Widgets such as AccessiBe and Userway utilize the power of artificial intelligence to help you enhance the accessibility of your website, making it compliant with accessibility standards and improving user experience for individuals with disabilities.
CAPTIONS
Adding captions to any multimedia contents allows those with hearing impairments to fully understand the message. Furthermore, those with cognitive or neurological disabilities may find captions helpful, as it would allow them to read along while listening.
CLEAR FONTS
While the average individual can decipher cursive or fancy fonts, these style choices can make it quite difficult for those with disabilities to navigate a website. Sans-serif fonts such as Verdana, Tahoma, Arial and Georgia are all considered to be accessible.
EASY NAVIGATION
Your website should make it an easy and seamless process for your patients to navigate right where they intend to go. For example, avoid website maps that require patients to click through multiple pages before they can make an appointment, contact the office or access important information.
CONCLUSION
You will find that many website accessibility tools and strategies align with website design best practices, anyway. After all, the average person also appreciates fonts that are easy to read and website colors that are high contrast and visually appealing.
Finally, if you’re not sure whether your ophthalmology website is accessible, it doesn’t hurt to ask! Getting feedback from your staff members or even trusted friends is a great way to identify areas for improvement. Even if they do not suffer from a disability, the average person can provide valuable insight into what areas of your site may need to be optimized to be more user-friendly and accessible. OM
