Buttons are nearly everywhere, which makes it hard to imagine a web page without them. In today’s online world, buttons play an important role.
Whether users buy something, sign up, fill out forms, or simply interact with a web page, buttons are quite helpful.
According to WHO, about 2.5 billion people rely on assistive technology such as screen readers. The accessibility of buttons makes it easier for this significant number of people.
It helps them interact easily, which makes your digital content and interfaces more functional for everyone. This guide walks you through the best practices for creating inclusive web interfaces.
Role of Accessible Buttons
Buttons are the key to navigation, allowing users to interact with your application and digital products. Accessibility for buttons is a critical element that allows those with impairments to effectively interact with your content.
Accessible buttons aren’t nice; they are a must if you want to reach a wider audience. For example, think of a website where a button isn’t visible due to poor color contrast or a button that lacks alt text.
Users with impaired vision or those relying on screen readers wouldn’t be able to access important information. They can’t perform certain actions on your web page.
Accessibility for buttons ensures that those who are differently-abled can easily navigate a website.
Here are a few things that will help you better understand the role of accessible buttons so the next time you design, you design for accessibility.
- Design with Clarity in Mind: People with impaired or low vision rely on screen readers. You must design with clarity in mind. Every button must have a label/description to assist those relying on assistive technology such as screen readers or helping those with vision impairments.
- Make Buttons Easy to Understand: Simplicity is key when it comes to accessibility. Complicated designs or unclear functions affect accessibility. People with dyslexia or learning difficulties need clear and simple buttons.
Key Features of Accessible Buttons
Accessibility for buttons is an important part of web accessibility guidelines. These WCAG (web content accessibility guidelines) make your web content accessible to a broader audience with physical, visual, speech, cognitive, language, learning, auditory, and other neurological impairments.
Following WCAG guidelines makes your content ADA-compliant and promotes online accessibility. Accessibility for buttons includes certain elements that you must consider.
- Keyboard Navigation: Buttons should be focusable and operable using the keyboard (for example, with the Tab and Enter/Space keys).
- Screen Reader Support: Use clear and descriptive text or ARIA labels to convey the button’s purpose to screen readers.
- Sufficient Contrast: Buttons should have enough color contrast between text and background. This ensures readability for users with visual impairments.
- Size and Spacing: Buttons should be large enough to be easily tapped or clicked. They must have appropriate spacing to prevent accidental activation.
- Visual Indicators: Provide clear visual feedback. For example, focus rings and hover effects indicate the button’s state, such as active, disabled, or focused.
- Descriptive Labels: The label should describe the button’s action clearly, avoiding vague text like “Click here.”
- Avoid Relying Solely on Color: Use additional indicators, like icons or text, to convey meaning, ensuring accessibility for colorblind users.
Best Practices for Designing Accessible Buttons
Considering certain elements when designing accessible buttons ensures inclusivity for all users. For example, using clear, descriptive labels, maintaining color contrast, and improving readability are some important considerations.
Here are the best practices for designing accessible buttons to boost the online accessibility of your web interfaces.
1. Improve Readability with Proper Color Contrast
Buttons are interactive elements on a webpage. Their visibility allows the users to interact with the web page easily. Sufficient color contrast is one of the foundational aspects of accessible button design.
Buttons should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between the text and its background or 3:1 for large text. These guidelines work well for users with visual impairments.
The sufficient contrast should also be consistent across different button states, such as hover, focus, and default, which promotes usability.
Using clear and descriptive buttons is also important for online accessibility. This means that you must avoid vague labels when designing. For example, labels such as ‘Click Here’ or Submit should be avoided. Instead, use terms like ‘Sign Up here’ or ‘Download.’
2. Button Size and Usability
Button size and spacing are critical design elements that affect usability. According to the web accessibility guidelines, interactive elements such as buttons must be at least 44×44 pixels. This accommodates users with motor impairments as they rely on touch devices.
When you keep sufficient space between the buttons and the surrounding text, it prevents accidental clicks, which improves your website navigation. This spacing is even more important for mobile devices where touch precision is relatively limited.
Optimal button size and layout improve the user experience for all users, simplify navigation, and make your website more compliant and accessible.
3. Guiding User Interaction With Visual Feedback
Clear visual cues refer to the color, size, and placement of the buttons. Visual cues are important for improving how users interact with your webpage.
Consistent visual feedback is more critical for improving user interaction than you think. Buttons should visibly change appearance when hovered over, focused, or clicked to confirm the user’s action. This feedback reassures users that their input has been registered and aids navigation.
By applying clear visual hierarchies and interactive states, buttons become more user-friendly and accessible to a wide range of users.
4. Designing Buttons for Screen Reader Compatibility
Using the <button> tag for semantics is important for online accessibility. Generic clickable elements like <span> are confusing and affect user navigation for those relying on screen readers.
In contrast, the <button> tag works much better as screen readers and other assistive devices recognize it and provide better context to users, which boosts functionality.
When creating buttons with icons, ARIA attributes like aria-label provide important context. This makes the button’s purpose clear to screen readers, assisting those with impairments.
These design elements are important for non-descriptive or icon-only buttons, which boosts online accessibility and maintains clean design aesthetics.
5. Implementing Keyboard Accessibility
Keyboard accessibility is one of the other important things that designers often miss out on when creating buttons. This key component of inclusive design ensures that every button is operable through a keyboard.
According to web accessibility guidelines, keyboard navigation is critical as users with motor impairments may not be able to use a mouse. Those relying on keyboards to interact with your website must not feel left out.
Every button should be navigable through the Tab Key with visible focus outlines so users can easily identify which button they’re hovering over.
Buttons should respond well to keyboard inputs such as the Spacebar or Enter keys. They must also provide visual feedback upon activation.
When you implement keyboard accessibility, users can effortlessly navigate your website. They can interact with various elements.
This not only boosts online accessibility but also opens your content to a wider audience that relies on input devices.
Common Accessibility Pitfalls to Avoid in Button Design
Designers can often overlook basic accessibility principles when designing buttons. This results in buttons that negatively impact user experience.
Addressing common pitfalls can help improve accessibility for buttons. It also lets you adhere to web accessibility guidelines. Here are common button design mistakes to avoid.
Overlooking Proper Button States
A common mistake in button design is failing to provide clear visual states for different interactions, such as hover, focus, active, or disabled. These cues are important for notifying users that a button is functional and the action is being registered.
Clear state changes, such as a color shift or shadow effect, provide feedback and improve user confidence. Ensure all button states are distinguishable and consistent, aligning with web accessibility guidelines.
Using Icons Without Text Labels
Sometimes, buttons rely on icons. This can confuse users with visual impairments or those relying on assistive technology. For example, the share button may only have an icon, such as a paper plane. This presents a challenge to those who do not associate this icon with the sharing content.
Other Examples of Icon-Only Buttons
- Hamburger Menu Icon: The three horizontal lines are often used to indicate a menu on websites or apps.
- Search Icon: A magnifying glass used to represent the search functionality.
- Trash Icon: A trash can symbol used to delete items.
- Heart Icon: Used to indicate “like” or “favorite” on social platforms.
- Play/Pause Buttons: Commonly represented by a triangle (play) or two vertical bars (pause) in media players.
If any of the icons are unfamiliar, they affect user interaction. For others relying on assistive technology such as screen readers, these icon-only buttons affect readability and functionality.
Certain icons may improve your design, but they must come with text labels or ARIA attributes to explain the purpose properly.
For example, a save button with a floppy disk icon may not be as clear to users. Adding text or an accessible description to such a button improves accessibility for buttons.
Placing Buttons in Hard-To-Reach Locations
Poor button placement is a rookie mistake you must avoid at all stages of design. Bad placement not only ruins user experience but also presents challenges to those navigating your web page from a mobile device.
Buttons that are too close to the screen edge require excessive scrolling. This becomes frustrating for those with motor impairments.
You must place buttons in easy-to-reach locations, such as the bottom of the screen or within reach of a mouse on a desktop layout. Proper placement also boosts online accessibility and improves user navigation.
Tools and Resources for Accessible Button Design
Let’s explore some of the best accessibility tools that can help you spot and fix issues fast, promoting accessibility for buttons.
Accessibility Spark
One of the smartest tools for improving button accessibility is Accessibility Spark. This AI-driven solution helps websites adhere to WCAG guidelines in minutes.
Once installed, Accessibility Spark scans your website to identify accessibility issues in button design, such as missing keyboard navigation, insufficient contrast, or lack of screen reader support.
Accessibility Spark can implement over 100 adjustments to ensure buttons are fully accessible. These include:
- Resizing button text for readability.
- Enhancing color contrast between button text and background.
- Adjusting spacing around buttons to prevent accidental clicks.
- Highlighting focus outlines for keyboard users.
- Adding ARIA attributes to improve screen reader compatibility.
These small yet impactful changes make buttons easier to see, understand, and interact with for a seamless experience for all users.
Accessibility Spark also performs regular scans to identify emerging issues with new designs, helping your site remain compliant and user-friendly.
WAVE
WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool) is another excellent resource for improving button accessibility.
This browser extension visually overlays your page with markers to highlight accessibility issues, such as low contrast, missing ARIA labels, or unclear button states.
WAVE is particularly useful for spotting problems with interactive elements like buttons, enabling quick identification and resolution.
Axe
Axe is a developer-focused browser extension that offers in-depth accessibility testing. It scans your website for button-related issues, including keyboard traps, poor focus management, and structural inconsistencies.
Axe provides detailed reports with actionable insights, making it an essential tool for meeting web content accessibility guidelines and standards.
By utilizing tools like Accessibility Spark, WAVE, and Axe, you can streamline your accessibility testing and create buttons that are functional, compliant, and inclusive for all users.
Let’s take a quick look at these tools and how they benefit accessibility for buttons.
Tool | Main Features | Best For | Functionality |
Accessibility Spark | AI-driven adjustments, daily scans, keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, font resizing, color contrast | Broad accessibility improvements | Provides 100+ adjustments for button accessibility, including color contrast fixes and focus management. Offers certification within 48 hours and integrates with popular platforms. |
WAVE | Browser extension with visual overlays, highlights button-specific issues like missing labels and poor contrast | Quick button audits | Identifies accessibility problems directly on the page, offering visual cues for rapid debugging. Excellent for smaller projects or specific button-focused checks. |
Axe | Comprehensive reports, detects keyboard traps, ARIA label issues, structural inconsistencies | In-depth developer testing | Popular with developers, it offers detailed insights into button design issues and compliance gaps, ensuring adherence to WCAG standards. |
Wrapping Up
Accessibility for buttons is more important than you think. It caters to a wider audience, in fact, the 2.5 billion users who rely on assistive technology.
When a wider audience can effortlessly interact with your webpage due to compliance with the web accessibility guidelines, your web pages benefit from increased traffic, which works well to boost SEO rankings.
Search engines prioritize websites that offer a better user experience. Therefore, this goes beyond just legal compliance. It’s also about you playing your part to make the digital world more welcoming and user-friendly for everyone.
You must keep online accessibility in mind when designing buttons. Following our best practices and using accessibility testing tools such as Accessibility Spark can help you keep up with the ever-changing guidelines for online accessibility!