Accessibility isn’t just a box to check off during a website redesign or audit; it’s a critical component of creating inclusive, user-friendly digital experiences.
For healthcare organizations, whose websites patients and families use to find essential care information, ensuring accessibility can be the difference between delivering value and causing frustration that drives a patient to a competing provider.
By integrating key accessibility features, healthcare organizations can meet legal requirements, enhance user satisfaction, and foster trust.
Here are six essential healthcare website accessibility features that ensure a great user experience for all your site’s visitors.
1. The ability to navigate with a keyboard
Keyboard navigation is a cornerstone of web accessibility, especially for users with mobility impairments or those who rely on assistive technologies. Ensuring that all interactive elements — menus, buttons, forms, and links — can be accessed and operated using a keyboard alone is essential.
To test your site’s keyboard accessibility, try navigating without a mouse. The focus should visibly move through interactive elements in a logical order, and all actions should be executable using keys like tab, enter, and space. Prioritizing keyboard-friendly navigation ensures that every visitor can explore and engage with your content seamlessly.
2. Alternative text for images
Alternative text, commonly referred to as alt text, provides crucial context for users who rely on screen readers to describe the content and function of images. For example, an alt text for an image of a healthcare provider with a patient might read: “Doctor discussing treatment options with a patient in an office.”
When writing alt text, aim to be descriptive but concise. Avoid redundant phrases like “this is an image of” and focus on conveying the image’s essential information. Beyond improving healthcare website accessibility, alt text can also boost SEO, as search engines use it to understand image content.
Depending on the type of image, how and where you place the text can vary. For example, strictly decorative images typically do not need alt text, while complex images like infographics require a more in-depth description that requires text on the page, outside of the alt text, to explain what is visually represented.
To learn more about the types of images that require alt text and tips on what to include, check out this blog post.
3. High contrast visuals
Users with low vision or color blindness benefit significantly from high-contrast visuals. A strong contrast between text and background makes content easier to read (for everybody, not just those with visual impairments!). For example, dark text on a light background or light text on a dark background ensures visibility.
To be compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), colors used to distinguish elements on a webpage must meet a contrast ratio of 3:1. If your web page colors don’t meet that ratio, other formatting must be used (such as underlining or adding a border around linked text).
Use tools like a WCAG Contrast Checker to evaluate your site’s contrast ratios. For added inclusivity, consider offering a high-contrast mode that users can toggle on or off based on their needs.
4. Text alternatives for media
Video and audio content is a fantastic way to build your organization’s authority and foster patient connections. However, these pieces of content should always include text alternatives to ensure healthcare website accessibility.
Captions provide real-time text for videos, while transcripts make video or audio-only materials into accessible, readable pieces of content. Both features benefit users who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as any user visiting your site in an environment where listening to audio isn’t feasible (i.e., in a crowded waiting room or public transportation).
When creating captions, aim for accuracy and synchronization with spoken words. For live events or webinars, real-time captioning services can help ensure inclusivity. By providing these alternatives, you enhance engagement and usability for a wider audience.
5. WCAG-compliant PDFs
As a healthcare provider, your organization likely has important documents like patient forms, educational materials, or brochures available for download on your website in PDF format.
To be accessible, these PDFs must meet WCAG standards. This includes features like including a document title, image alt test, using tags, and ensuring the text in the document is machine-readable for visitors using a screen reader to access your site. That means if you have any PDFs on your site that are scanned-in images of paper documents, now is the time to re-upload them as machine-readable PDFs.
6. User controls for media elements
Video backgrounds or content sliders that play automatically are popular features on healthcare websites. However, for users with low vision, motion sickness, or cognitive impairments, these elements can make your website unusable.
To accommodate these users without giving up visually dynamic page elements altogether, provide user controls to pause, stop, or adjust these elements. This provides a more comfortable browsing experience, and allows every website visitor to be in control of the content on your page.
Make sure that controls are easy to locate and use. For example, include a clearly labeled “Pause” button for autoplaying videos or allow users to manually move sliders or carousels to allow them to read the content at their own pace. These adjustments empower users to engage with content in a way that works best for them.
Accessibility is about more than compliance; it’s about creating an inclusive digital environment where everyone can find the information and support they need. This is especially important in the healthcare space, where our primary job as marketers is to provide a seamless journey and easy-to-find answers from the moment a visitor first enters our sites.
To learn more about healthcare website accessibility, check out our blog posts on commonly overlooked accessibility guidelines, WCAG requirements, and how you can check the accessibility of your organization’s website.
If your website could use an accessibility-focused refresh, our team is ready to help with the latest healthcare website accessibility guidance and design insights to make your site friendly and usable for all visitors. Contact us today to learn more and get started!