According to the World Health Organization, 15% of the total population faces some form of disability. That’s a whopping 1.1 billion people. When you’re designing your SaaS, you need to make it easier for people with disabilities to use it as well. Here are some tools that make your SaaS more accessible.
Why make SaaS more accessible?
When you’re on the way to your supermarket and you see a ramp next to the stairs or dotted tiles on the floor, you might not think much of it. But this is a sight for sore eyes for people with disabilities. Even if no disabled person visits the store, anyone who passes by will surely appreciate the initiative taken by the store owners. This puts the store in a better light and lets the general public know that anyone is welcome.
Similarly, when you design your software with disabled people in mind, you’re increasing the scope of usage. You’re also letting them know that your product isn’t only for people with perfect bodies and everyone is welcome to use it. Once you know what “accessibility” means for the software industry, you can start to explore the benefits of putting this concept at the forefront of your design strategy.
How does it help the business?
Making your SaaS more accessible increases the brand reputation of the company and lets the customers know that you’re willing to put their needs first. Companies lose billions of dollars annually due to the lack of digital accessibility. Neglecting accessibility not only fails to reach newer customers but also drives away existing customers.
Supporting people with disabilities puts you ahead of the competition in terms of the “customer first” strategy. To improve your product further, you can conduct frequent surveys and send out questionnaires to users of your product.
Tools to help improve accessibility:
1. WAVE
WAVE stands for Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool and was developed by WebAIM to increase the accessibility of web content. WAVE is a suite of evaluation tools that helps authors make their web content more accessible to individuals with disabilities. WAVE offers Firefox and Chrome extensions which help test accessibility within web browsers.
2. Cynthia Says
Cynthia Says is a web content accessibility validating program that is designed to identify errors in web content. It is a free tool aimed at educational purposes, but it validates only one page at a time. It validates according to the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines 508.
3. EvalAccess 2.0
EvalAccess 2.0 is a web tool to evaluate accessibility as per WCAG 1.0 and section 508. It is a tool designed and developed by the University of Basque in Spain. They have a free version but if you want to evaluate multiple URLs, a paid subscription is necessary. It can check a single webpage as well as an entire website
4. Accessibility Checker
Accessibility Checker helps solve accessibility issues with an optimized UI. Existing issues are categorized into three categories, Errors, Warnings, and Notice. It is a What You See is What You Get editor and it mostly resolves issues automatically.
5. SortSite
SortSite is a website testing tool that is used by federal agencies and Fortune 100 companies such as Disney, Toyota, US Department of Justice, Canadian Space Agency, and NASA. They offer a desktop application for Windows and Mac. They also have a web application. It checks for HTTP errors, grammatical errors, CSS and XHTML errors.
6. Dynomapper
Dynomapper is a visual sitemap generator that evaluates the HTML contents of a website. It creates a sitemap and can import XML files to generate sitemaps too. It also provides content inventory and an audit to filter pages, images, and links.
7. Color Contrast Analyser
Color Contrast Analyser is a free tool that allows an easy contrast ratio of two colors using the eyedropper tool. This is helpful to optimize web content such as text and visual elements for the visually impaired and color-blindness. They also have a Color Blindness Simulator to check for multiple color-blindness content on the go.
8. Functional Accessibility Evaluator 2.0
Functional Accessibility Evaluator evaluates the web accessibility of web pages according to WCAG 2.0 A and AA compliance. It is used in combination with AInspect Firefox. It also comes with an accessibility bookmark to better understand accessibility issues.
9. Tenon
Tenon evaluates the accessibility of web pages for WCAG 2.0 and 508. It used API that can be easily integrated with the tools used for unit testing, acceptance testing, and issue tracking. Tenon is unique as it tests your code as you develop it and not after it is fully developed which can make changes on the go easier and faster.
10. aXe
aXe is an open-source developed by Deque and integrated with Deque’s suite of tools for full coverage of web pages. They offer a free chrome extension and a demo of their full functionality. aXe shows each piece of code that has issues and the solution to fix it.
To wrap it up…
In today's digital world, there are countless clients looking for the ideal software. It's vital to remember that these customers are seeking more than just features; they're also looking for the ideal functionality. Making accessibility a priority can help you not only attract new customers, but also improve your reputation, stay compliant with industry standards, and keep existing customers for longer.
