125: Website Accessibility Basics: Small Changes That Help People and Search Engines With Rachel Mess

In this episode, Jules White is joined by Rachel Mess from the Inclusive Design Company for a conversation about website accessibility and why it matters for both users and search visibility.

They explore the strong overlap between accessibility and SEO, and how simple website improvements can make your site easier to use for everyone. From heading structures and font sizes to colour contrast and image descriptions, Jules and Rachel share practical ways to start making your website more accessible without needing a full redesign.

Rachel explains how accessibility helps people with visual impairments, learning differences, or mobility challenges use websites more easily, while Jules highlights how many of the same improvements also help search engines understand your site.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your website is easy for people to use, or if you want to improve both accessibility and SEO at the same time, this episode offers a practical place to start.

Key Takeaways:

• Accessibility and SEO often overlap: Many of the same improvements that help search engines understand your website also make it easier for people to use.
• Heading structure matters: Using clear H1, H2 and H3 headings helps both search engines & screen readers understand your page hierarchy.
• Colour contrast is essential: Poor contrast between text and background colours can make websites difficult to read for many users.
• Font size affects usability: Small font sizes can create barriers for visitors, especially on mobile devices.
• Image descriptions matter: Adding alt text helps screen readers describe images & can also support your website’s visibility in search results.
• Small improvements can make a big difference: Fixing headings, contrast levels, & image descriptions are simple actions that improve usability for everyone.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Use the AIOSEO Chrome plugin to check your website’s heading structure & image alt text
• Check your site with Google PageSpeed Insights accessibility testing tool
• Rachel’s Inclusive Design accessibility checklist for small business websites
• Visit Rachel Mess at The Inclusive Design Company website

Transcript

Introduction & Background

Jules White: So hi. Welcome back to the Website Success Show.

Today I’m joined by Rachel Mess, the owner of the Inclusive Design Company. So welcome Rachel; it's so great to have you here.

Rachel Mess: No, I'm excited.

Jules White: Yeah, so am I, I'm really excited about today actually. It'll be good.

We've had a couple of chats recently and we just decided, actually I needed to get Rachel on the podcast so we could have a chat about all of the important things to do with accessibility.

There's so much overlap, I think, between SEO and accessibility for websites that I thought this would be a really good chat to have and really helpful for the listeners.

So before we dive into that, do you want to just let us know a little bit more about what you do and, um, yeah, we'll go from there.

Rachel Mess: Yeah. Um, so I am, first and foremost, a web designer.

I develop websites on Webflow and I tend to work with service providers, so kind of anyone from financial advisers, copywriters, logistics companies, DEI consultants, et cetera.

But from, kind of from the very beginning, I realised that I didn't know anything about accessibility and thought I'd made a massive mistake.

So I went on a little learning curve and wanted to make sure that all of the websites that I was creating for clients were accessible for all of their potential clients.

Because I didn't want to charge somebody for a custom website and then there could be somebody on the other side of a screen somewhere that's struggling to use it.

This would just be because of my kind of lack of knowledge or not putting that knowledge into practice.

What Is Website Accessibility

Jules White: Okay. So can you just explain in sort of basic terms what accessibility is for websites?

Rachel Mess: Yeah. So it's making sure that websites and your kind of brand as a whole is usable for anyone.

This is regardless of any visual impairments, learning disabilities, um, or their age.

Maybe if they speak English as a second language, or if websites are usable for anyone with any limb disabilities, um, anything like that.

Basically just, yeah, trying to make everything as user-friendly as possible.

Jules White: Okay.

Rachel Mess: Thinking about all the possible scenarios that...

Jules White: Okay. Fantastic.

And so, what are, like, how did you kind of get into this world?

How, was there anything in particular that could, that made you think, like did you have a light bulb moment or something that kind of made...?

Rachel Mess: Well, my si— I didn't actually have a light bulb moment where I probably, I feel like I should have.

Um, so my sister's visually impaired and I had gone through, like I'd got a diploma in UX design and I had done a whole bunch of courses and nothing had mentioned accessibility.

And I think when I was just sitting at my computer playing around with designs, I was just in my own little design bubble and playing, like having fun with different fonts and different colours.

Um, and it was my sister that pointed out the first website I'd created for myself.

She was pointing out text that was really difficult for her to read, and it was just because the weight of the font was really light and one of the fonts was like a script handwritten font.

Jules White: Yeah.

Rachel Mess: And I was just like, oh my God, I didn't think of this at all.

Yeah. Um, I kind of thought I'd been an idiot, but to be honest, it was just that it really hadn't been mentioned in any of the courses that I'd taken.

Jules White: Yeah. Yeah.

I think when I first heard about accessibility, I think I heard about it through being taught about SEO.

I don't think I ever, when I first learned about properly building websites, I don't think I ever, I don't remember it.

Certainly, I don't remember it being a lesson or there certainly wasn't, you know...

Rachel Mess: It is something that's missed. Um...

Jules White: Yeah.

Rachel Mess: I looked a lot. Um...

Jules White: Absolutely. Yeah.

And a bit like SEO where often if people are employing somebody to build a website for them, SEO is either a bit of an afterthought or is not really thought about at all, not really discussed at all.

And this might be a similar sort of thing with accessibility, where developers are a little bit scared to talk about it.

So they just don't, rather than saying, actually, you need to go and speak to Jules for SEO or you need to go and speak to Rachel to talk about accessibility of this brand new website that you're having built.

Rachel Mess: It makes sense too. And...

Jules White: They both kind of just like hope.

How? Hope that nobody's gonna sort of...

Rachel Mess: Pretend it's not a thing. Pretend.

Pretend it's not. Pretend it's not a thing.

Like we just won't talk about it. It's not a thing. Don't worry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy.

And I'm sure that you'll have seen so many websites where SEO hasn't been considered like at all.

And there'll be such basic mistakes.

And I've definitely seen people on maybe like connections on LinkedIn being like, "Oh my gosh, like my new website just launched. I'm so excited."

"Thank you so much to so and so. Absolutely love it."

And like the first screenshot that they've shared, I'm like, there's no contrast.

There's like such low contrast between your font and your background.

Or I'll go have a quick little nosy. I'm like, no, there's no descriptions on your images and all of these types of things.

And you just... I'm sure you'll feel the same.

There's kind of like a frustration within the community of being like, "Come on guys, we can do better than this."

Why? We all just do the things.

Jules White: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's definitely this thing of like that basic friendliness.

Uh, like for me, SEO friendliness; for you, accessibility friendliness.

This isn't even like full strategy on how can we make this website as accessible as it absolutely can be.

Absolutely, it's just basic basicness. Yeah.

Basic friend. Basic, like, yeah.

The friendliness of those two things I think makes such a big difference.

And funnily enough, the two things that you mentioned there, the alt text on images and the font contrast...

Rachel Mess: Yeah.

Jules White: Are things that help websites to actually show up.

There's so much contrast, like, so much, um, crossover really between SEO and accessibility. And you just mentioned two. Yeah.

Heading Structure & Page Hierarchy

Rachel Mess: This is always a big thing for me.

Jules White: Yes.

Rachel Mess: And they're so...

Jules White: When page structure...

Rachel Mess: They're so important for SEO.

Jules White: So why does that matter for accessibility?

So we're talking here about our page hierarchy, which anyone who's listened to the podcast for any length of time will know that page hierarchy is really important.

So I always explain it that your page should be kind of like an English essay.

Where you have one heading and then all of the hierarchy underneath it.

So you just have one H1 heading.

Underneath that, you have H2s that sort of break things down into the subtopics of that page.

If you were thinking about your English essay, you'd have one heading at the top, then subheadings, and then maybe some H3 headings underneath that.

So that's why that matters from an SEO point of view; it matters because it helps the bots read through your website and understand that structure.

Why does it matter from an accessibility point of view?

Rachel Mess: Because it helps screen reader users read through the website.

It gives assistive technologies that understanding.

So in the exact same way that Google and search engines are reading and understanding the context, screen readers and other assistive technologies need to have that understanding of what the structure of this is.

So if somebody's blind and they're listening to the contents on a website, they get that like note of H1.

This is the main title.

So it gives them the understanding of what the hierarchy is and what the talking points are.

Jules White: What's... what are the important parts of this page?

I think that's really important.

And that's, yeah. It's the same signals to the... actually, yeah, if it's a real person listening, if it's a real person looking at the page, I think as well.

So if we are not thinking about...

Rachel Mess: Because we'll see like a visual difference.

Like we're not looking at websites that are just top to bottom paragraph body text.

We are seeing like a visual breakup of what are the headings and what are the subheadings.

So just putting in the actual correct heading structures gives anyone using assistive technologies that kind of note to be like, "This is what we're talking about here."

Jules White: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

And once you know about this, and once you know how to check it, I always talk about AIOSEO, which is a little Google Chrome plugin I use.

And you can go to your own website and you can install that.

If you're using Google Chrome, you can go to the Chrome Store, install that plugin, go to your own website and click on it, and it will show you your heading structure on your page.

And once you look at it, and you see H4 at the top, followed by H2, followed by H... like 101 H1s.

36 is the most I've seen on a website.

And it's not that uncommon, especially if people are using technology like, um, FEA Create.

Sometimes some of their templates aren't particularly set up well for this page hierarchy.

But you go there and you look at this and this is often like, that's usually the first check I do to see if there's any page hierarchy.

And I can often tell if people have at least spent some time thinking about their SEO and for you, I guess for accessibility as well. Yeah.

Um, but one of the things that you could do once you know that, and you know in your website builder how to fix it—and in most website builders, this is a fairly common fix.

You can select the text and then select what heading you want it to be.

And then if you want that—actually, I'm gonna come back to that—but you want to, once you know that, it's actually not a bad little job to go through and do.

And it makes such a big difference.

It's something that you don't necessarily need a massive amount of brain power to do.

One of my clients said she quite likes doing that on a day where she doesn't feel like doing other stuff, but she wants to do something.

Going through that is a really positive thing.

She feels like she's made a difference to her website and one of my Website Growth Club members came on and shared that as a win.

We share wins in the group, like small wins or big wins, whether they're getting clients or whether they're making progress on something.

She came in and she said, "I've been through and fixed all of my heading structure on my important pages."

And that's such a big win because it makes such a big difference, I think. Really.

Rachel Mess: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Absolutely.

Jules White: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Absolutely.

Rachel Mess: And I think it's just that, like we... I always say like we're so lucky to kind of live in a time and to be running businesses in a time where it's so easy to like get a website out there and start like promoting ourselves, promoting our businesses, and booking clients.

But there really does seem to be like such a lack of resources or learning hints within these platforms. Mm-hmm.

Even with like Squarespace or, but yeah, like anything, like you mentioned, FEA Create.

Like all of these kind of sub-agencies and softwares as well.

I think just having like a little note there to tell people this is what these heading structures mean.

Because I think what happens is, yeah, a lot of people just go with the size.

Jules White: Yep. Yeah.

Rachel Mess: So they just go like, "Oh yeah, I want a big heading here, so I'm gonna go with an H2."

"And I want a small heading here, so I'm gonna put this little H5 above my H1."

Jules White: Yeah.

Rachel Mess: Yeah.

Jules White: Or yeah, I just want it to look a slightly different colour or something. Yeah.

And actually it's paragraph text, so it shouldn't even be a heading because it's not that important on the page.

Yeah. Or it, you know, everything on the page is important, but it's not something that needs...

Like if somebody was skim reading through that page or had, as you say, had a screen reader reading that out, they would be able to understand those headings.

They could understand what your call to action is—so the buttons on the page—and be able to take action from that point without having to read all of the paragraphs on the page.

But I think that's one of the things... a little trick is people, because I think the website platforms do set us up to fail, don't they?

As you say, they're not even just a few little hints there to say this—you know, just have one H1 on each page—like a simple thing that we would recommend.

And it's, you know, because it is your website, you can choose to do what you want with it.

But if you want a website that's gonna perform for you—which most people do—and most people I think want this set up in a way that it's good for people to use.

Rachel Mess: And when it's platforms that have been literally designed and developed to help, like, the business owner, the individual shop owner, or small business owner, like that's what they were created to do.

They weren't created for developers like WordPress and Webflow and stuff like that.

Um, like these ones that were specifically targeted to be like, "We're gonna help like the woman that started her own business and get her off to a flying start."

Um, yeah, to like not give those hints... it's definitely something that's kind of missed out, I think.

Jules White: Yeah, definitely, definitely a massive opportunity there.

I think really just for it to be built in.

But then there's so many... like I've often have so many frustrations with platforms really as well, that they just don't make... like they don't make the user experience easier for us as the business owner.

That then makes that end user experience that helps our customers and helps our customers then to take action and buy from us realistically.

Or, you know, join our email list or whatever action we're trying to get them to take.

All of these things have a knock-on effect really.

I think it's because it's all the geeks in the background—the proper geeks in the background who don't necessarily... who aren't running a business necessarily.

They don't necessarily think about the fact of actually just a little hover-over that said, "Do you... you've got 10 H1s on this page. Are you sure?"

Rachel Mess: Yeah. Yeah.

And I think it's just like, it's obviously the developers in the background that are building the platforms.

Their brains probably work a lot different to our brains, who are the business owners trying to set these things up.

Like even for clients, like for you and me that are helping, our brains work so differently. Mm-hmm.

And you're probably quite similar to me where like the assets are fairly important or like just a good sort of feeling that there's a good user flow.

That's something I've always struggled with WordPress.

Um, if I've gone into a WordPress site for somebody to give them a hand.

And then I'm going in, I'm like, "Why is this not saving? Why is this not doing...?" Mm-hmm.

Like, "Why is this not... where do I change my footer? How do I do this?"

Like, and literally doing something like three or four times and then being like, "Oh, I have to scroll down to the bottom and hit save."

Jules White: Yeah. Um, yeah.

Rachel Mess: Things like that where you're just going like, "Oh, the people that have built this, like, I'm just wired differently. It's not making sense to me."

Jules White: They need to have more conversations with people, with end users who...

Rachel Mess: Absolutely.

Jules White: And be sitting there watching them struggle and watching them like...

Rachel Mess: Because it's usually that's all UX. Yeah.

Jules White: Absolutely.

Rachel Mess: I don't know why that's actually not more of a thing within...

Jules White: Yeah, no, not all...

Rachel Mess: Actual developers. Yeah.

Jules White: Exactly. Maybe because they want—I don't know—I kind of feel like, oh, maybe they want to keep it in the hands of developers, but it doesn't really help anybody, does it? So...

Rachel Mess: I know.

Common Accessibility Mistakes

Jules White: So what are, like, if somebody's thinking about, like, actually a question I was asked first is, what are some of the big mistakes that you see with accessibility?

So obviously we've talked about heading structure.

Colour Contrast & Font Size

Rachel Mess: Yeah, definitely. Contrast levels is the big one.

And people get very, very, very attached to the colours that they're using, which I get because we are predominantly visual people and we want to love the colours that we're using.

And colours do have their own meanings.

So you want to be using colours that are going to work well for your business and that you love and you're happy with. Um, but...

I've had a few conversations and I remember one really sticks out in my mind where we were talking accessibility—me and this other business owner.

And they were talking about how important accessibility is to them, but their two main brand colours didn't have... they were partnered with white.

So it was always like white text on like bright pink or like a bright purple.

And the contrast level was failing contrast checks. And um, and the business owner was just like, "Oh, but... well, we have to have these colours."

"Because that's my favourite colour and that's the other business partner's favourite colour."

And I was like, "But, but, but people can't read the text that you're putting."

So I think that sometimes trying to come in with that sort of practical: love pink, love purple.

But what tones can we find? What shades can we find that are gonna then allow you to keep that colour or keep a shade of that colour, but in a way that...

You know when you're putting posts out on Instagram, everyone can read what you're saying because otherwise it's silly to use it.

Jules White: Um, or maybe don't use it as a background for the text.

If you're that adamant, "We want white text and we want this colour," then don't use it as the background for the text. Exactly.

Rachel Mess: Exactly. So colour contrast is a big one. And...

Jules White: That's a big one for Google as well.

There's a... we can go through Google's PageSpeed Insights, and one of the things it will tell us is if the contrast on our page is not right—the colour.

Rachel Mess: And really common ones are like, you have the corporate side where it's like grey text on white backgrounds.

But then you have the more personal brands and the fun brands, and it will be bright pink or yellow or like bright turquoise on a white background.

Um, or white text on that colour of background.

Um, so yeah, that's definitely the main one. Um, let's see, what else?

Jules White: What about font size?

Because I think this is something where people either go too small or too big.

I see that often where—usually it's too small.

I normally say not below a—or Google doesn't like below a 16 pixel.

I never use, I don't think, below an 18 pixel on websites.

Rachel Mess: Yeah, no. So 16 is the absolute minimum.

So yeah, that's just always what I have in mind.

And anyone that... I mean, I've had clients—I do sometimes work with clients where they'll provide the design and I'll just build it out.

That's not my favourite to work on because they may always end up with me going, "Oh, like, we can't do that. We can't use that one."

Um, but yeah, that will be when they're giving you something like a size 12 or a 14, and I'll just be quietly bumping it up to 16.

I'll be like, "Absolute minimum 16."

Um, but yeah, I am always kind of eight—anywhere between kind of 18 and 21 is where I tend to fall in.

It depends on the fonts that you're using as well.

Jules White: Yes.

Rachel Mess: It can kind of change how... and this is actually something that I genuinely don't understand.

Like I'll be like, "Why do size 17 in this font or size 18 in this font look different from size 18 in that font?"

Because I'm like, but it's pixels, so it should be taking up the same amount.

And I genuinely don't understand why stuff looks so drastically different from each other.

Uh, but yeah, it depends on the font, but I kind of go between like 18 and 21 as my happy list.

I also work in—this is me getting developer—but I tend to work in REMs rather than pixels.

Um, so actually when people are asking me actual font sizes, I'm like, "Like four, four and a half REM for a H1 people."

And like, I don't actually know what that is in pixels—60 or something like that.

Jules White: I think you're supposed to use that now, aren't you, REMs?

Rachel Mess: Like for responsiveness.

Jules White: But I still haven't made the switch over. Yes. Yeah.

So it helps then those fonts perform better on mobile if you do use that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've not quite got to that point yet of using that. So...

Rachel Mess: Then you get to—I was then using REMs for kind of everything.

But then if you're talking about like spacing between things, you're still supposed to use pixels because that keeps it more regimented.

Jules White: Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel Mess: So they're always changing things, so you're always having to, yeah, keep learning.

Jules White: Yeah, yeah.

Rachel Mess: Uh, but no. Yeah, so when it comes to pixels, I'm always just like minimum font 16.

Um, and I suppose if things are getting—if you're worried about fonts looking too big—that's a tricky one.

Because different designs will call for—like, some designs will be very, like, massive text heavy.

And that's like their design choice.

Jules White: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Rachel Mess: Yeah. That's a... it's trickier to kind of, I think, get the balance when it's at the big fonts.

Decide like, where are we actually sitting?

But as long as it's big enough, I think then that's good.

Getting Started with Accessibility

Jules White: So if somebody is just a small business owner and they're just starting to think about accessibility, what are the things that they should consider?

Rachel Mess: Okay, well I actually—do you know what? I need to...

Jules White: Got the dog here, she's barking.

Rachel Mess: I have like a free, kind of like 10-things checklist, which I think is actually really handy because it just gives you like a little basic thing.

But if anybody wants we can pop a link to that.

Jules White: We can... we can update the link. Yeah.

Rachel Mess: Yeah. Shoot me a message and I'll get that over to you.

Um, but I think when you're first starting, the easy thing is to get your colours and go to WebAIM's.

Um, it's like webaim.org/checker and that's like a contrast checker that I use and that'll just let you test your colours.

So I think that's the kind of first thing.

Then I would go through your website and have... so a big thing as well that we've not spoken about is like images and descriptions on images.

Alt Text & Image Descriptions

Jules White: Oh yes. We were gonna chat about that, weren't we? Yes.

Rachel Mess: And those can be kind of tricky.

And those are the ones that are more like a balancing act that you need to kind of think about.

But basically if you have any images on your website that convey information—so if you've got any charts, any screenshots of testimonials, um, anything with text or information in it—there needs to be a description for that.

Because again, if anyone's using a screen reader, then they're not gonna know what that image says if you don't write it down and tell it.

Um, but another one... I also think, see for like photographers, nail artists, hairdressers, anything where the visuals really show what it is that you do.

Then again, give a description of that; like tell the screen reader user.

Jules White: This is really important for SEO as well; that makes a massive difference.

Ideally, for every page that we're trying to get to show up on Google, we want at least one image with the alt text actually described. Yeah.

Rachel Mess: Describing the... and I always try to like, bring in some keywords for the description as well.

Jules White: Depending on... I think almost like depending on how many descriptions we're writing.

Rachel Mess: So if it's say like a hairdresser's or a salon and it's in—let's say it's in Glasgow. Mm-hmm.

Um, obviously your sort of keyword would be hair salon in Glasgow, blah, blah, blah.

The description... but I'm not gonna put that into like every single image.

Because if there is a blind person that is looking for the hair... and first of all, if there's descriptions on them all, that blind person is probably like, "Oh my God, this is amazing."

"I've actually got descriptions on all of these images and I can actually listen to the colour and the style that this person provides."

Because it's so underutilised and so many businesses don't do it.

I know, from people I know who are screen reader users, they have said like when they come across a business that has these, they're so happy about it.

It makes them then become more loyal to that customer and actually like send people to that business—people that they know.

Because they'll be like, "This business is really accessible. This person really thought..."

Jules White: They've actually made an effort at least to do some basic accessibility.

Rachel Mess: Exactly. So like if it's something like that, then it's trying to be a little bit more creative with the keyword.

It's maybe putting the keywords at the end as opposed to at the beginning.

Because the person listening doesn't want to constantly be hearing, "Hair salon Glasgow, blah, blah, blah. Hair salon Glasgow, blah, blah, blah."

Jules White: Yeah.

Rachel Mess: Um, so yeah. But yeah, it's just trying to get that sort of balance of what descriptions you're putting in.

If things are there purely for decorations—like decorative images—you don't have to write a description for them.

Jules White: No. That would be really annoying if it was like "floral background."

Rachel Mess: Yeah. And even when it's pictures of us—if it's for our websites and there's pictures of you and me throughout the full website.

Jules White: Yeah.

Rachel Mess: I tend to put like a description on like one of the images per page. Mm-hmm.

To give like a little visual of what I look like and what the picture is of.

That type of thing. Mm-hmm.

After that point, they don't need to listen to like four or five descriptions of: "Rachel is a white woman in her thirties with dark hair, sitting at a desk working on her laptop."

Like that's not... that's just noisy for people. Yes.

Jules White: Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's again that thinking about those important things that need to show up on the page, really.

Rachel Mess: Definitely. Yes.

Jules White: And those images themselves can be the thing that shows up on Google from an SEO point of view.

Again, like that can literally... you can show up in the images tab and that can bring people through to your website.

As you say about that hairdresser in Glasgow example there, that definitely could bring new visitors to your website and... yeah.

Rachel Mess: Yeah. I actually have such a funny story about that, which I suppose isn't really related to a customer finding me—which is obviously what you're looking for.

But I was... this is such a tangent, but I was with my friend's little boy who was like five at the time.

He was just talking about different celebrities to me.

He was like, "Do you know who Ariana Grande is? Do you know who Taylor Swift is?"

And I was like, "Yeah." And he was Googling their names and showed me pictures of them in Google Images.

And then he put in my name and then actual images of me came up.

It was images from the website or images from like LinkedIn and stuff like that.

And he was like... I would say this... he was like, "You're famous! You're on Google!"

Jules White: Yeah.

Rachel Mess: Yeah. Those... um, it's just funny because you're right; when you're putting those descriptions into images, they do then show up in Google Images.

Jules White: Which would be handy if...

Rachel Mess: If people know about you.

Ideally, you want a paying customer to find them and then come across them, not like your 5-year-old nephew.

It's gonna be like, "Wow, you're famous." You're like, "I'm not, pal."

Jules White: But it's important.

I think it helps, and especially moving into AI search as well, it's really important that we build up this positive brand sentiment.

And part of that is people being able to find us.

And part of it is, you know, the images and those kind of things make a difference really.

So, yeah. Yeah.

The dog's still here. She's causing trouble today.

She's been for a groom and she's like... she's on a trouble mission.

Rachel Mess: She's buzzing. She's feeling fresh.

She's like, "Everybody look at me, look how good I look."

Jules White: I want to be on YouTube too.

Rachel Mess: She's so cute.

Jules White: Bless her.

Practical Steps & Resources

Jules White: So what advice would you give to somebody who just wants to consider the basics?

You said you've got your guide, didn't you? So they can grab that. Yeah.

If somebody wanted to just take one piece of action and look at their own website...

Actually, the AIOSEO plugin also does show you about images that have got alt text and images that are missing alt text.

So that's another one that if you're already using that plugin, you can click on the little images tab and that will take you and show you that information.

What else can people do if they want to just get started with this?

Rachel Mess: Um... I don't want to say like book an audit because that's more of that, but you can book an audit actually.

Um, actually, like you're saying, things like the SEO tab and like Lighthouse.

Putting a website through Lighthouse will give you an accessibility...

Jules White: What's Lighthouse?

Rachel Mess: Lighthouse? Google Lighthouse.

It's a way that you can use Lighthouse or Google PageSpeed Insights.

Jules White: Yes. Yeah.

Rachel Mess: I've seen because there's an accessibility tab on page speed.

Jules White: Accessibility, like, score.

Rachel Mess: Yeah. So actually I think if you're literally like, "I want to do one thing that gives me a hint of where my website is at," going to Google PageSpeed Insights will give you a kind of score out of a hundred and let you know where you're at.

And then if it's not very high, then yeah, come chat to me.

I can give you that resource. Um, yeah, we can audit things like that.

Yeah, just I think things like what we've spoken about: checking your contrast levels and checking you've got the heading structure.

It's small things; it really is small things with accessibility.

Um, don't get me wrong. There's all of these different layers to it that the more you're considering it in your business, the more considerations you're always going to start making. Mm-hmm.

But just to get started: things like your contrast levels, your heading structures, and your font styles.

If you've got lots of handwritten font styles across your social media or across anything, those are ones that are really difficult for a lot of people to read.

Jules White: Yeah, I'm never that keen on script fonts.

I think it's definitely something that needs to be something that doesn't matter on your page.

If you're gonna use a bit of script font, almost treat it like decoration on the page, really.

Yeah, because yeah, they're not great.

I think anything where we are making people—and this isn't just for people who do have additional accessibility needs, this is also for anyone who's visiting our website.

I think with all of this stuff, we don't want people to have to get their glasses out to read our website ideally.

Which is why the font size on mobile particularly...

Rachel Mess: 100 percent. That's always something I do think about.

Where if I'm chatting to somebody and they're like, "Oh, well, like our ideal customers aren't visually impaired," I'll be like, "No, but you're maybe financial advisers or mortgage brokers."

"And a lot of your ideal customers are gonna be people in their forties or fifties that have got more buying power than your first-time buyers in their twenties or thirties."

So they're bigger, better customers for you, generally speaking.

Because they've got more money. And I say, sight is deteriorating as we age.

So you want things to be as user-friendly as possible for your ageing customers.

Why Accessibility Benefits Everyone

Jules White: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

And how do we know? We don't know what additional needs people have or just convenience needs as well.

People might not just be using a screen reader because of visual impairment; they may be using it for other reasons.

So like, it makes...

Rachel Mess: There's also this sort of aspect too, which I think a lot of people overlook.

Having a disability or being disabled is like the one sort of minority group that anyone can end up going into.

Jules White: Yeah.

Rachel Mess: Like I have an old boss who when I worked under her, she didn't have any sight issues or anything like that.

But over the last five years or so, her sight has drastically deteriorated.

She's waiting for surgeries and things like that.

So she's needed to listen to audio descriptions and put on page readers on her phone.

This is because she has almost lost her sight just in the last five years.

And so any business owner... it's one of those things like if you actually meet the person, you're always really considerate of their needs.

You want to make sure that you're still able to provide the service and that they understand everything so that they can buy from you.

Like all of that.

And I think just when we're talking digitally, it's really easy to kind of be like, "Oh well, none of my customers have these issues."

But they could. And you don't actually know.

Jules White: No, we don't. We don't. Definitely not.

Yeah, definitely not. And it might be other things.

Like, I don't know whether... it suddenly just occurred to me, people with dyslexia maybe would use screen readers because it's easier for them than trying to read a website.

To hear it talked out loud. Is that the right way to say that?

And also something that just popped into my mind as well: this kind of stuff would also help with voice search optimisation.

But even things like our smart speakers and our phones and AI chats, where we are chatting by voice...

Rachel Mess: Yeah.

Jules White: All of this kind of stuff does massively help. So yeah, we can't just...

Rachel Mess: I've been thinking this week because I hurt my hand at the weekend.

So it's been difficult to type because I'll usually use my left thumb to also take things out.

It's just under my left thumb that I hurt.

And so I've been sending a lot more voice notes.

Voice notes and FaceTimes were both created as accessibility tools.

So FaceTime was for deaf people so that they could phone each other and sign to each other.

That's why that was created.

And voice notes were created for blind people or visually impaired people so that they could send voice notes to each other.

They wouldn't have to be typing things out and using their assistive technologies to then hear the text read out to them.

Jules White: Yeah.

Rachel Mess: These are just things that we use every day without even realising that they were actually designed for people with disabilities.

I mean, it's one of those things of like when you're designing for the margins or creating for people that maybe have a disability, you're making life easier for everybody.

Everybody would find the benefit of it.

Jules White: Yeah, absolutely.

And anything that makes life easier, and especially when it comes to websites, anything that makes people not have to burn mental calories is so important.

It makes it easier for them to move that next step along the journey to buy from you.

Closing & Where to Find Rachel

Jules White: It really is. Yeah, it really is absolutely, absolutely fantastic.

Oh, I feel like this has been a really... I knew we would have a good chat, but I feel like this has been a really good chat.

Um, so before we finish, do you want to just remind us of what you do and especially where people can find you?

Rachel Mess: Yeah. So if anyone ever just wants to learn anything about accessibility, come and find me.

I don't know, maybe if you've got a team that could do with a new workshop or something you want to learn more about...

I'm on Instagram at Rachel at Inclusive Design.

Um, I'm on LinkedIn and it's Rachel Mess.

And the company is the Inclusive Design Company.

Jules White: And what's your website, Rachel?

Rachel Mess: The website is theinclusivedesigncompany.co.uk.

Jules White: Oh good. I always like to get that in there.

Rachel Mess: Yeah. Yeah. Bear with me because it's still... honestly, I'm like the state of the cobbler whose kids don't have any shoes.

That's what I'm like with my own website and I'm like, "I really need to get it..."

Jules White: That's standard though.

That is absolutely standard for all website people and SEO people whose own websites are not fully SEO optimised.

Yeah, absolutely. That is standard.

There's a reason, there's a saying for it, and it's the same I think across all of them.

Rachel Mess: As soon as it comes to a client, I'm like, "Yeah, let me help, let me get in!"

As soon as it's for me, I'm like, "Oh God."

Jules White: Because it's easier. Doing it for somebody else is so much easier. Right.

Rachel Mess: Just like it's more fun when it's for somebody else.

When it's for yourself, you're just like, "I could be doing something else right now."

Jules White: Yeah, absolutely.

Rachel Mess: Yeah.

Jules White: Fantastic. Oh, well thank you so much for joining me, Rachel.

I've really enjoyed this chat, and thanks for listening and we'll see you soon. Bye.