Accessibility Features in Joomla

Accessibility or ease of access is a universal approach to make anything available to anyone regardless of their age, gender, and physical attributes. This is also protected by a few common laws globally to provide special access to disabled people. In today’s digital world, this trait is not negligible either.

To facilitate disabled people with proper access to numerous digital products and services, a common law has been introduced called WCAG 2.1 AA. With the implementation of this regulation, any software company must create a website accessible and friendly for the disabled. Therefore, Joomla also included this feature in their CMS.

From this article, you will understand the definition and numerous aspects regarding Accessibility Features in Joomla.

Web Accessibility: What is it?

Web accessibility is about making your Joomla website usable for all visitors, regardless of their abilities or physical orientation. It involves removing barriers so that users with disabilities can access your site, explore your products or services, and navigate it easily. In today's world, everyone expects a consistent online experience, and web accessibility ensures that all users have equal access to your Joomla website's features and content.

Why Web Accessibility is Required?

Web accessibility is important for various reasons. Failure to comply with laws can lead to fines worldwide. It also affects universal access to online information. Additionally, an accessible website is easier to maintain and provides a good user experience, which can build a strong global reputation.

From the commercial perspective, you will lose a large amount of sales from disabled people across the world who badly need web accessibility from your site. 

Finally, your brand reputation will get fractured seriously if you don’t pay sincere attention to this. 

How You Can Set the Accessibility Features in Joomla? 

Joomla introduced web accessibility features from version 4 onwards, setting a positive example for other CMS companies. Therefore, you will be one step further than your competitors to promote your brand appeal through your Joomla website.  

Backend 

In Joomla 4, adjust accessibility settings in the backend under 'Accessibility Settings' to enhance the website for disabled users. Once selected, you will be directed to the 'Accessibility Settings Window' in the top right corner. From there, customize the template by making it monochrome, choosing a high-contrast version, enlarging text, or adding hyperlink highlights. Improve visibility for disabled users on your Joomla website.

Keyboard Navigation

Joomla 4 also offers an attractive and functional keyboard option for people with accessibility issues. This is to ensure that they can reach their desired pages or features with simple keyboard navigation. 

Here, you can go to your Joomla 4’s backend and after reaching any page you can use this feature. ‘Control + Option + 9’ is the only thing to do while choosing the ‘Keyboard Navigation’ option. If anyone presses these three keys then they will see a navigation area will be opened on the top of the page from where they could select any part of that particular page.

Dedicated Plugin 

You will find a new and fully dedicated ‘Additional Accessibility Feature’ plugin on Joomla 4. This is a fully accessible option that gives a plethora of amenities for your visitors who are disabled or physically incapable of performing regular actions. As a built-in plugin, you can enable it from your Joomla 4 backend with the following steps:

1. Dashboard > 2. System > 3. Manage > 4. Plugins

After selecting the plugins option, you need to look out for the ‘accessibility’ option and then activate the Systems - Additional Accessibility Features

From the above image, you can see that this specialized accessibility feature has a range of options for greater ease of use for disabled persons. As you can see, it is easier to do the following with the above option:

• Modifying the text, spacing, or size

• Flip the color scheme of your website’s particular page

• You can use only one color

• You can make the mouse cursor bigger for better eye-sight

• It is available to highlight all the necessary links

• You can get help from a reading guide to know the actions of individual buttons easily

• You can also request the browser to read the content with a loud voice for better detection.

Monitor & Auditing 

Monitoring the Joomla site’s performance and necessary auditing of the accessibility feature will ensure you a guaranteed advantage. This will also give you priority on avoiding future lawsuits, or numerous accessibility legislations. Additionally, the audit option will help you to identify the different problems that people with disabilities might face while using your Joomla site. Either manually or with the help of accessibility testing tools, you may verify if your Joomla website is accessible. However, testing for accessibility manually might be a bit complicated at times as you may not be familiar with various functions or problems. As a result, you should keep the following checklist in mind for better accessibility testing outcomes:

• Color contrast measurement

• Various labels & forms

• Alt text of image

• Keyboard shortcuts

• Highlighting contents

• Checking fundamental page structure

• Other means of multimedia content

• Filter for color blinds

• Software for voice identification

• Easily accessible menus

• Develop effective timeouts

Apart from the above options, you can find many other accessibility tools online.

How Glossy IT Can Aid You With Accessibility Features in Joomla (H2)

You might think that it is quite easy to deal with the web accessibility features provided by Joomla 4. However, our observation is that a large number of Joomla site users had struggled to use this properly in the first place. As a result, we recommend you to take necessary assistance from an expert in this field. 

Luckily, Glossy IT’s team of experienced and skilled Joomla developers is ready to serve you with the best accessibility options at a reasonable budget. We are proud of our service as many of our previous international clients endorsed us and encouraged us to go further.

Feel free to give us a shout if you need our professional Joomla Accessibility Development Services.  

To Wind Up

Joomla has advanced significantly in recent times. Also, this CMS has achieved some fantastic advancements in accessibility options. However, you should not believe that making your site accessible is expensive and exclusively meant for those with disabilities will give you less traffic. Rather, you will be surprised to know that you can gain additional advantages from increased accessibility, such as better brand recognition and superior search engine optimization which ultimately increase your Joomla website’s brand value in many spectacular ways. Finally, we will suggest you get expert help if you ever feel confused about any accessibility feature.