OP ...while I appreciate what you are trying to do, this is going to send you into the weeds more than anything else :)
Everyone is going to give you different responses to this question, because everyone has different needs based on their particular vision impairment, different tech and different skill with said tech. You'll get a number of low-hanging fruit, sure, but you're not going to get them all this way, and if you want to do this correctly, you're kinda supposed to :)

I can give you a couple pointers, but if you want to do this right the best advice I can give you is to invest in someone who is well-versed in accessibility to come give you a hand in the design phase, or to seriously learn about this yourself if you don't have the means to do so.

A couple freebies though:

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\- Heading structure is important. Headings are supposed to outline your page, not just make text bigger. Using an h6 to make a piece of text a little bigger is an antipattern, use CSS for that instead.

\- Important image? Give it a filled in alt attribute.

\- Where possible, use native HTML elements over enhanced div elements.

\- Make sure to keep in mind that screenreader users aren't the only accessibility target audience. Keyboard-only users, speech recognition users, low-vision users that need sufficient contrast etc. are part of this demographic as well.

\- Use ARIA only as a last resort, as it targets screenreader users only and is often not necessary if the correct native HTML elements are used.

\- Stay away from AccessiBe or any of its competitors; people who actually care and use these kinds of features detest these companies with a passion.

Cookie popup.

Newsletter signup popup.

Regional preferences popup.

Live chat popup (the live chat is offline)

Would you care to ritually murder the people who wrote this site popup.

Improper ARIA labeling (or none at all), too many modal or drop-down menus that aren't coded to function with keyboards or mice reading functions, no Tab-indexing to help with content navigation, poorly organized layout that has a billion links, breaks, and spans inside the main content, so I have to constantly reactivate a keyboard shortcut. Constant painful contrasts (dark colors on dark backgrounds, or light on bright), no contrast options, and carousels... They're nightmares for keyboard users! Lol!
With all of this, all I can say is... Look up the WCAG 2.0/2.1 guidelines, as well go to W3.org to find even more helpful information!
It's super nice of you to have asked the community as well! Thank you!

Dark Mode, Dark Mode, Dark Mode.

Dark mode is an incredibly easy fix and would help like 80% of blind people. Most blind conditions have difficulty with contrast, and reading black on white is nearly impossible. Dark mode goes such a LOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGG way in helping us, and is a relatively easy fix for websites compared to integrating braille reader tech and stuff.

Check out these surveys from WebAIM for more general data.

https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey9

For me though, the worst are unlabeled/improperly labeled controls "link" "button" "clickable" and double labels on form controls or labels in an inconsistent order, (this is especially bad for those elements without obvious uses like back buttons in the top left corner of an app screen)

Followed by auto popups which either don't have an easy way to exit them, or always come up at a certain point while scrolling.

Next would be quickly repeating alerts "ad will end in 30, 29, 28, 27" or auto playing videos outside of dedicated video player pages, particularly those without easily accessible controls.


Not using even basic headings to separate out your content is another big issue, especially common on some recipe websites.

Please contain your ads/sidebars to areas outside the main content, rather than slapping them haphazardly within your text. Common in listical style articles.


Alt text is great, but if you can't for what ever reason, please at least don't leave us with the obnoxious file location/name to read instead.
This similarly applies to any scripting, please make sure it's guts aren't accidentally being exposed to screen readers, it's pretty irritating to have to wade through multiple lines of code just to get to what I want, and confusing on sites like Lastpass.com for instance when logging in and seeing "error, success, error" on page load.


If you are going to have a dialogue come up on a button press, or even just have one hanging out somewhere like many sites do for live chat, make sure that dialogue is labeled as such when arrowing over it with a screen reader, and definitely make sure there is an alert letting the user know it's been launched and where to find it if moving their focus to it right away isn't ideal.

Don't design with full senses as a given when ever possible. What I mean is, things like forms with errors having the input boxes which need to be redone marked in red and nothing else, or click and drag as the only option for uploading an avatar.


In a similar way, try to remember that not everyone is on the same device. Good keyboard access and proper tab order are great, but make sure mobile users can still enter into your edit fields, check your check boxes, and especially problematic, use your comboboxes properly.

In addition to the comments here, contact organizations that provide services to the visually impaired and blind. Some of them have created educational materials and I imagine computer accessibility is one of the topics.

You could download NVDA and try your site with it, after reading the manual and practising a bit.



I'd recommend changing the synthesizer to microsoft, I don't think you'll like the one it comes with.

I think there should be a code or ability to recognize the meat of an article. To ignore ads, extraneous boxes, etc. Too much time is wasted explaining everything on the screen. This would have to be impeded in all websites. Messy websites with a hundred click bait ads is awful.

Edit: The rest is trying to read and use computers generally, not readers. I'm reading with my face two inches from my phone.

For VI, Microsoft should shell out a few pennies for extra large pointers etc. Maybe we are small in number, but if we developed a universal way of useful website structure, universal keyboard, reader, magnifier, speed of reader etc we could operate as fast as anyone.

So far, I see things provided to the blind very piecemeal by many private companies or organizations but I don't see working together.

The dead have very different situations. United by eyes and sign allows them to develop a noisy opinionated, demanding group. VI is individual, lonely, and is my humble opinion, subject to the mercy or goodwill of others.

I just became blind. I need more information at the fingertips and ears, easy button identification. Shortcuts. Accessibility from the moment we turned it on.

A screen is pretty useless no matter how big unless it is super-close. Even then, I am constantly moving my head and eyes to read or find, for example, the menus at the top of a MS Office document.

Sorry. Those are my peeves of the month. If this isn't what you need.