Why the Leopard Changed His Spots: The Importance of Accessibility For Your Website

If you’ve recently visited our website, you will have noticed that we have updated our corporate colours. It is a subtle change, but a massively essential one here’s why.

The old adage that a leopard can’t change its spots speaks to one’s inability to alter their innate nature. If you work in digital marketing, as we do at Collaborative Haus, we are constantly changing our spots, honing our skills to keep pace with the speed of the ever-changing digital world.

One component of the digital world that is constantly evolving is accessibility. If you are unfamiliar with accessibility, it is all about making your website inclusive to all your users. We often tell our clients how vital accessibility is, so it’s essential that we practice what we preach.

As Accessibility experts, our website needs to be inclusive, user-friendly, and open to everyone, including people with a visual impairment. So, we revamped our site, changing the visual style to one that included colours that had more contrast between the text and the background. This allows people with a colour vision deficiency to better perceive the information on our website.

Approximately 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency; if you extrapolate that to the population of the world, that’s almost 300 million who may not be able to view your website properly! If you are not creating an accessible space online, you are ignoring a large audience.

By January 2021, many websites in Ontario will need to be AODA/WCAG 2.0 AA compliant by law. Even if your business is not impacted by this legal requirement, it is in your best interest to make sure your site is accessible to everyone.

If you are unsure of the accessibility of your website, give us a call. As experts, we have the tools and knowledge to help. Contact us today – the first meeting is always free!