WordPress is massively and continuously gaining popularity with the evolving times. Earlier, many coders would use basic HTML to develop websites and other applications; companies now prefer to hire WordPress developers to build their brand’s website using WordPress.
Entrepreneurs with even a little technical knowledge often develop a full-fledged website using WordPress as it is quite convenient and simple.
Currently, wordpress backs around 35% of the total active websites in the world. 35% of the total is in some millions, that is how huge the world of WordPress is.
Since the platform is gaining such rapid fame, many developers who earlier coded basic HTML scripts moved to gain speciality in developing WordPress websites.
As we mentioned above, many entrepreneurs develop the website on their own. Still, to integrate more advanced features into a WordPress website, it is essential to get some professional help, hire the resource who has a speciality and experience in particular WordPress.
The shift from other platforms to WordPress is understandable since it offers various features that can be integrated into one’s websites, such as template customization.
The one milestone every entrepreneur aims to achieve is to provide an engaging user experience to the audience through their websites. This is often done by integrative interactive features or aesthetically pleasing components on the site. However, these elements are not usually visible to every user, especially those who use screen readers.
To your luck, there’s a system that ensures all your users can access your hard work. This can be done through ARIA, an acronym of Accessible Rich Internet Applications.
You can hire WordPress Programmer to implement ARIA properties in your site’s HTML and ensure clear visibility of everything you wanted your users to see and appreciate on your website.
What is ARIA?
As mentioned above, ARIA is an acronym for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. They are the set of attributes that can be added into a website’s HTML that makes the web content or application accessible to users who use assistive technologies (AT). Therefore, if basic HTML is unable to tackle the accessibilities issues, ARIA can help bridge the gap by providing necessary measures.
It is a commendable tool to provide equal opportunity and accessibility to each user on the internet, which is, as considered by the UN, a fundamental human right.
Not just that, ARIA works in synergy with the best SEO practices to enhance your website’s search engine presence, increasing your brand’s reach.
But now comes the critical question of how to incorporate ARIA into the HTML code of a wordpress website.
There are easy ways to make use of ARIA’s abilities. But let us start by saying that it is challenging to implement ARIA by yourself; you will have to look for wordpress programmers for hire if you wish to make no mistake in increasing your website’s abilities.
Let’s start with the easy steps to incorporate ARIA into HTML:
- Apply ARIA to the Semantic HTML:
Native HTML is not the greatest option for making your web content accessible. Using ARIA with Semantic elements such as <nav>, <figure>, and <header> (ones that describe the purpose of HTML) can be redundant.
Remember, there’s no compulsion for you to assign roles to a semantic element that has an already implied role. Special care must be taken by the developer you hire, that no such unprofessional mistakes are made during the process.
- Add roles to HTML tags:
Hire WordPress developers and ask them to add attributes and roles of ARIA to the HTML elements of your site. It will help you to specify the purpose of the components and also indicate the content type each element must hold.
The developer must be super careful while assigning the roles since each element can have only one role.
Some roles your developer can use are:
- Main: labels the fundamental content of the website
- Banner: portrays the website’s identity
- Navigation: use for navigational components
- Search: utilized for search forms
- Content info: used for the main content’s information
- Complementary: used for supporting content.
The role of each component is assigned within the HTML tag. Since an element can be defined by just one role, you can not give it to two different things. Therefore, make sure your developer assigns the role only to the best-suited definition as per the element.
However, there’s an option to nest elements, which can be used to your benefit. You can nest elements inside of each other as per your convenience.
- Include the attributes of ARIA to indicate properties and states:
The other method to integrate ARIA into a website is to use attributes. These attributes do not define the elements. Instead, they provide precise and essential information about themselves to the screen reader.
ARIA has two types of attributes: States and Properties.
States convey relevant information to the screen reader about those features of a site that are to undergo changes or respond to a specific way when the user interacts with them. These can be checkboxes and radio buttons.
Properties indicate the features that remain static or highly unlikely to change even if the user interacts with them on the website. These elements can be labels that provide information regarding other elements.
Conclusion:
Creating content that is accessible to every user using the web is the backbone of your website. All your efforts go down the drain even if you create wonders and are unable to show it to the ones you have developed it for. Therefore, ARIA plays an essential role in increasing your brand’s market standing by providing the needed support to your website.
To efficiently use ARIA and turn your HTML into a flawless WordPress website, you should start looking for WordPress programmers for hire.
Ensure your users see and appreciate each of your efforts, and to do that, ARIA is the way.