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Accessible website design and build

We have exceptional expertise in developing world class websites that are accessible performant and enhance an organisation’s brand and their relationship with their audience.

Designer at computer working on an UI Kit

Accessible UX design and website build

You might have gathered by now that we think that equal ability to access and use your website is important.

15% of the global population have some form of disability, 80% of which are hidden disabilities.

An accessible website from Scaramanga will still look beautiful and have blisteringly fast performance. If you need integration with other systems, that will be included. It will still deliver a great user experience to your visitors without disabilities – they probably won’t even realise!

However, it will deliver an amazingly inclusive experience to visitors who might otherwise have struggled, which will earn you so much kudos in their eyes.

Here are some of the areas we consider during the build:

  • Screen reader usage and adjusting text size
  • Descriptive navigation links
  • Keyboard only access for people with mobility issues
  • Alternatives for non-text content
  • Transcription for video content

We follow best practices when developing websites and test against recognised criteria using a combination of automated tools and manual review.

We use WCAG 2.1 Level AA as a benchmark for compliance testing and strive to obtain this as a minimum. This is in line with government guidance for websites built for public bodies and is deemed general good practice.

Perhaps most importantly, you need to select the right content management system. We build in Craft CMS which was chosen by the World Wide Web Consortium for their new website, due to Craft’s outstanding accessibility credentials.

Performance

We aim to build websites that benefit from sub-second page load times, as this is the accepted benchmark for an optimal user experience. Achieving this goal requires a combination of techniques - from the choice of server to template enhancements.

SEO management

We make sure we don’t neglect one of the often overlooked areas of a web design project: Search Engine Optimisation. Although we can never guarantee your rankings in Google (or any other search engine), we do take care to do everything we can to capitalise on the rankings you already have.

This involves adding redirects to instruct search engines of the new location for old pages (if an old website exists); adding Google's Rich Results and Rich Snippets; integrating Google Search Console to set-up Google XML Sitemaps submission and deal with any reported issues; as well as helping you add correct meta data (title, description, keywords) to your content. All this work goes hand-in-hand with the standard SEO techniques we employ as part of the build.

Integrations

With many of the sites we develop, particularly for membership organisations and venues, we will develop integration with other systems to improve efficiencies for the client, as well as the user experience. These include:

  • CRM systems
  • Payment systems
  • Booking systems, include Spektrix
  • Email marketing platforms
  • ecommerce

Testimonials

Working with the team is truly is a delight. We often say in our office that they do exactly what they say on the tin; they really are thoughtful. Attentive when you need their help, sympathetic when you think you may have broken your website, considerate to the needs of the staff who use the website, as well as the end user and kind when you don’t understand technical jargon and they explain it to you in layman’s terms! Simon and team have made this daunting project seem manageable and overall an enjoyable experience – thank you for all your help!

Stephanie Clark Marketing and Audience Development Manager, Corn Exchange Newbury

They really understood our vision for the website.

Mary Egan Director of Operations, FOCAL International