In this article, we will answer the question why should brands be accessible? By listing our reasons. Before answering this question, I think that, briefly explaining what is accessibility is beneficial. For brands, being accessible means that no matter people’s differences or disabilities, they can benefit from the products your brand provides. We have written some of the steps that you should follow in order to make your brand accessible. Read on to find out the steps we recommend you follow, and the advantages of being accessible provides to your brand!
1-Use your communication channels actively so that customers can ask you questions about your brand.
Your customers might feel the need to consult you before buying your products. In this case, you should be able to answer their questions. You need to use communication channels such as social media, phone, actively. A customer whose questions are not answered will not develop a feeling of trust towards your brand.
2-Making your brand accessible grows the mass of people your brand caters to, and thus increases the chance of profit.
One of the absolute goals of a brand is to profit. Accessibility is a crucial factor in growing the mass of people your brand caters to. Appealing to as big a mass as possible increases the possibility of profit.
3-When you make your brand more accessible, it becomes more inclusive.
There are a lot of individuals with diverse differences in the world. It is also their right to make use of the opportunities your brand offers. By making your brand accessible, you can enable those individuals to make use of your products as well.
4-When your brand is more accessible, there is a bigger possibility of a community of people will form which will advocate your brand.
If customers are happy with your brand, they will recommend it to people around them. Thus, without much effort from your part, your brand will be heard by people, and a community will form which will advocate your brand. In order to increase the possibility of such a community forming, your brand needs to appeal to as much people as possible. Making your brand accessible will definitely increase the number of people your brand appeals to.
5-An accessible brand website will facilitate the access of individuals with disabilities to your brand’s website and products.
In order to facilitate the access of people with visual and hearing impairments, and people with photosensitive viewing disorders to your brand’s website, you should take their needs into consideration.
For hearing impaired people, you should add subtitles to videos and audio content. In order to facilitate the access of visually impaired people to your brand’s website with screen reader software, you should organize your articles with headings, and label form fields and links with easy-to-understand labels. You should add alternative text that describes them to visual content. Flashing content is dangerous for the lives of viewers with photosensitive disorders. Lights that flash more than 3 times in a second will trigger seizures. Flashing lights are also distracting. You should avoid using flashing lights in your visual content. If you cannot, you should indicate to the users that such flashing lights exist. In this article, we have explained how being accessible can boost your brand.
As BlindLook, our aim is to cooperate with brands and make the products people use in daily life accessible to visually impaired people. I personally think that accessibility is important and needs to be applied, because with accessibility, more people can benefit from the opportunities your brand provides.
Author: Burak Yüksek / BlindLook Blind-Visually Impaired Community
