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NEW YORK—The way consumers interact with brands has completely changed as Internet use, social media engagement and the use of smart mobile devices have exploded. Even in the best economies, every consumer counts and they come in all shapes and sizes—and with various vision needs.

But how does a blind or low vision user interact with the Internet? Can they shop online? Research companies?

The answer today is “yes,” and savvy online retailers and health care providers are ensuring, through best practices in Web site accessibility, that blind and low vision consumers are getting the gist of their Web sites’ messages, and complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the process.

Accessibility Means Identifying

According to the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), a “nonvisually accessible” Web site means that screen access software—a screen reader—can obtain sufficient information from the Web application so that it will identify to a blind or low vision user images, charts, tables, links and frame titles.

Accessibility is less about technical savvy and more about diligence. Put simply, in the text version of a Web site (no images, charts, or tables), does the message still make sense? Since JPEG, PDF and other graphic files don’t show up in text version, the only way for screen readers to identify what those files are there for and what they convey is through spelling out their meaning in their own file names.

For example, a picture of a refractive lens named “rf23.jpeg” will be read to a visual impaired user’s screen reader as “r, f, two, three”, which means nothing to the user. However, by naming the image “refractive_lens_stock_number_23.jpeg”, the screen reader says, “refractive lens stock number twenty-three” and the user remains engaged with the Web site content.

The same applies for charts or tables in pdf format. However, instead of just carefully naming this type of file, retailers should also post HTML versions of the data provided in the chart or table, again, to retain the visually impaired user’s attention.

A Widening Market

It may seem like a lot of work to comply with Web site accessibility. Honestly, it is a bit tedious. But there are 3.6 million Americans over the age of 40 who are blind or visually impaired, and that number is increasing, according to a Prevent Blindness America spokesperson.

Those include consumers who may have been robust Internet consumers and then lost their vision, and consumers who have always been visually impaired and are comfortable online using their screen readers or other vision enhancing devices.