Biz Tips: 15 Simple Ways to Make Your Business More Accessible to People With Disabilities
Biz Tip:
15 Simple Ways to Make Your Business More Accessible to People With Disabilities
It is remarkably important for businesses to be inclusive and accommodating to people with disabilities. To learn more about what businesses can do — whether it involves store or office setup, hiring, site design or even simple outreach — see what members of the Young Entrepreneur Council offered below:
What is one way businesses can make themselves more accessible to people with disabilities?
1. Allow Service Animals
Service animals play a big role in assisting people with various disabilities both physically and mentally. In the United States alone, there are approximately 500,000 people with service dogs. These folks want to go to businesses like everyone else. Consider allowing consumers to bring service animals into your place of business to make your location more accessible. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
2. Train Your Team
Train your employees that interact with customers directly on how to provide customer service to people with disabilities across multiple channels. They should know what to do when a person has difficulties using your product or service, and they should be able to address every possible related issue. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
3. Include People with Disabilities in Your Marketing
First, companies should be following best practices when it comes to accessibility. For online businesses, make sure your website is fully accessible and utilize technology that improves accessibility. Beyond this, let people with disabilities know that they are welcome and included by featuring them in your marketing materials. Representation is important. – Keith Shields, Designli
4. Provide Solutions Specifically for Them
Develop solutions specifically for those with disabilities and share that with them. It’s the best way to get their attention and show them they are an important part of the audience. – Serenity Gibbons, NAACP
5. Add Alternative Text to Images
Adding descriptive alternative text to images can make your content accessible. Doing this allows screen reading software to describe images on a site that helps people with visual impairments. Small changes like these can make your site more accessible. – Blair Williams, MemberPress
6. Include Subtitles on Your Videos
Video is one of the most popular forms of content online, so a lot of businesses use it in their marketing strategies. But, if you want your business to be more accessible, be sure to include open or closed captioning in your videos. This not only makes your content more accessible to everyone, it can boost your views, since many users like to watch videos on social media with the sound off. – Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
7. Follow Website Accessibility Best Practices
There are several ways to make your website more accessible to people with disabilities. Always name your links (as opposed to “Click Here”) so anyone using a screen reader will know what you’re linking to. Also, consider that not everyone is able to use a mouse or trackpad. Design pages so that people can easily navigate using the keyboard, such as arrows and tab keys. – Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting
8. Volunteer
Take your team and volunteer at organizations or events for those with disabilities or tied to an organization that helps disabled individuals. You’ll get to interact with this target audience in person and get them to know your brand and what you stand for. – Angela Ruth, Calendar
9. Create an Accessible Office Space
If it’s difficult for those with disabilities to maneuver around the office, then it’s past time to make it more accessible. Installing ramps, providing lower tables and desks, and removing objects that get in the way are just a few ways to cater to those with disabilities. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
10. Allow for Remote Work
In addition to making sure that their physical space is accessible, the best way that businesses can make themselves more accessible to people with disabilities is to offer flexibility with the option for partial to complete remote work. – Erik Rivera, Certapet
11. Be Ready to Help
Train your staff to support anyone with a disability. For instance, they need to be ready to read documents for someone with bad or no eyesight or perhaps transcribe notes for someone with little to no hearing. It is all about recognizing the additional help required and providing it with grace and patience. – Jared Weitz, United Capital Source Inc.
12. Shift Your Hiring Priorities
When looking to hire or create a position for a person living with disabilities, your priorities for the role should fall in this order: Will we add value to their life by hiring them to join our team? Will they add value to our current employees’ lives? Will they provide value to our company? – Lindsey Groepper, BLASTmedia
13. Plan Your Retail Space With Wide Open Areas
Disabilities come in many different shapes and forms, but most of them can benefit from easier access (walkways, ramps, bigger doors) and not having to run into everything once inside a location. We all know retail space is expensive and hard to come by, but if individuals with disabilities is a target market, this is definitely something that should be considered. – Zac Johnson, Blogger
14. Be Open to Suggestions from People Who Have Disabilities
Businesses should always be open to listening to people with disabilities. The only way to make yourself open is to interact with people who have disabilities. Ask them questions and make sure that your products and services are accessible to them. Whatever feedback you receive, be sure to respond in such a way that shows you care about their buyer’s experience, and always make necessary changes. – Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors
15. Stay Educated
If your business wants to cater to those with disabilities, then you must be educated about it first. It doesn’t make sense to start something with little to no knowledge about it or the people who live with it. If you can educate those on your team to learn more about disabilities and how your company can be more accessible to them, then it’s on the right path. – Jared Atchison, WPForms
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