Every website must be accessible to those who are disabled.
And, in order for your website to be accessible to those who are disabled, it must be:
-Robust
-Understandable
-Perceivable
-Operable
If your website isn’t one of those things – or, for that matter, isn’t any of them – then you are at risk of an ADA web accessibility lawsuit that can and will affect you and your business.
To satisfy the web accessibility guidelines outlined earlier, a variety of things must be considered. And, out of all these things, one of the most notable is accessible fonts.
No matter what, your website must rely on accessible fonts.
Going over what an accessible font is and how you can integrate them while speaking with an ADA accessibility lawyer will protect you from web accessibility lawsuits.
What Are Accessible Fonts?
Right before we can go over what accessible fonts are, we must go over what inaccessible fonts are. And, with that point in mind, inaccessible fonts are fonts that:
Overlap with other words.
Turn certain symbols into indistinguishable markings.
Make certain words difficult to read.
Other examples exist, but those are the most common.
Relying on inaccessible fonts makes it difficult for those with disabilities – and, for that matter, those without any disabilities – to understand the text on your website.
On the other hand, an accessible font is a font that:
Ensures each word and symbol is distinct from one another.
Is clear and legible.
Makes it easy to read the exact words that are within a sentence.
Just as an example, an inaccessible font will make a sentence difficult to read due to the strange symbols and overlap within the text. But an accessible font will make a sentence easy to read and understand.
How Can You Integrate Accessible Fonts Into Your Website?
To integrate accessible fonts into your website, you can and should rely on the following guidelines:
Rely on clear, easy-to-understand fonts, such as “Arial” and “Times New Roman.”
Keep your fonts at a size of at least 16 pixels or one rem.
Ensure that the font you use has an appropriate color contrast.
Regarding the latter item, if your website relies on a white background, then you should not use a white-colored font, as this will make the text difficult to understand; you should, instead, use a dark-colored font.
If the above guidelines are not met, then it will be difficult for those who are disabled – and, again, those who are not – to understand the text on your website.
Outside of these guidelines, though, there is one other thing to note: the text on your website must be live text and, as such, built into your website.
Many of those who are disabled rely on screen readers, and if the text on your website is live text, this text can be read and then understood by those who cannot see the text on your website.
