What is ARIA and why is it important?

As many as 15% of the world’s population has a disability. This large group is generally not considered when building a website.

As we wrote in our previous blog post On the Forefront of Accessible Web Design, to be accessible means to give the same access to all people, including those with visual, hearing, and physical impairments, cognitively challenged people, elderly people, and other groups. Companies often miss the opportunity to reach this population.

What is ARIA?

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) are labels that can be used to add semantic meaning to web content and web applications. These labels (called roles and attributes) are included in the code. 
As an example, you can add an ARIA role to a website’s toolbar, banner and contact form. These types of content and applications do not have a semantic meaning beyond the code that is used to build it. However, by using ARIA tags, they can be read aloud and explained semantically to someone who is visually impaired.

ARIA tags can be used for a wide variety of web content and applications, such as subtitles, icons, banners, menus, widgets, and more.

It is an important part of making your website accessible to people with disabilities.

Why use ARIA on your website?

Using ARIA tags could bring a great deal of benefits to your SMB clients, such as a positive reputation, increased website traffic and the acquisition of new customers. In fact, studies show that users who have disabilities are more likely to purchase from a website that incorporates their needs into the website’s design.

Another aspect to consider is that there could also be legal implications that could affect your SMB clients. In some countries and jurisdictions, companies with an online presence have a legal obligation to provide equal access to people with disabilities.

ARIA on the Mono Platform

The Mono Platform offers accessibility features that allow small businesses to support people of all abilities and disabilities in just a few clicks.

To help SMBs make their website easily accessible for everyone, the Mono Platform has been developed to include ARIA tags. This means that whenever you add a content element to your Mono website, you can easily add the ARIA labels to each content element in the user interface. No custom code needed. 

Additionally, the Mono Editor includes other simple features based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), that outline best practices for making websites accessible for everyone.

Visual indications show which element on the site that is currently active to help the visitor easily see where they are on the website. For example, a box can appear over highlighted text as users scroll through websites with their keyboard.

Skip to content allows users to bypass the screen reading navigation. This feature is for users who do not want the navigation to be repeated every time the user opens a new page on the website. 

About Mono

Mono was founded on the belief that all small businesses deserve the same level of online presence and performance as larger companies. With Mono platforms and products, we want to provide small businesses an all-in-one solution to boost their online presence and sell more. We not only want to provide the digital tools to fulfil their digital presence needs, but we also want to share inspiration for small business owners and web designers for their digital journey.