It’s no longer optional for your website to be accessible; you’re losing prospective customers if it isn’t accessible to those with impairments. Moreover, you can face legal issues.
AI heatmaps can identify accessibility issues before they become a problem. How? Let’s go more in-depth.
What Are AI Heatmaps?
AI heatmaps analyze user interactions on your website. They display the locations of mouse clicks, scrolls, and movements.
The game-changer, though, is that heatmaps driven by AI can also forecast user behavior. This implies that you can identify problems without thousands of visitors. With a limited dataset, AI can accomplish this.
Heatmap Types
Three primary categories of heatmaps exist:
- Click Maps: Displays the most clicked locations by users.
- Scroll Maps: Discovers how far users scroll down a page.
- Mouse Tracking Maps: Show where users move their mouse.
How AI Heatmaps Assist with Web Accessibility
AI-based heatmaps are an integral part of improving a website’s usability, especially for a diverse audience or for users who may have disabilities.
Heatmaps analyze user-activity patterns to identify problem areas and can make suggestions to improve the experience. Below are four accessibility issues that can be identified and addressed with the assistance of AI heatmaps.
1. Identifying Low-Contrast Areas
Poor color contrast between text and background might make reading difficult for visually impaired persons. Heatmaps identify regions that users regularly pause, skip, or disengage from – often an indication of problems with readability.
Fix: To make sure color contrast ratios adhere to WCAG guidelines, measure them using an accessibility contrast checker. To improve visibility, change the colors of the text and background. For clarity, use labels, icons, or underlining instead of just color to communicate meaning.
2. Identifying Navigation Problems
Difficult navigation can be a substantial obstacle for people with disabilities. If your heatmaps show users hovering over or clicking in different areas of the interface seemingly aimlessly, the user may not be able to find important parts of the interface, such as menus or buttons.
Fix: Make navigation easy with clear labels and menus that make sense. Put buttons and links where users expect them to be, like at the top. Add keyboard navigation for those with screen readers.
3. Understanding User Interaction with Online Forms
Online forms can be a source of frustration for any user, and particularly users with motor disabilities or cognitive disabilities. AI heatmaps can show you exactly in which fields users completely stop the engagement with the (frustrating) form, helping you identify the confusing or in accessible fields.
Fix: Keep forms short and simple. Use clear labels, placeholder text, and autofill. Write helpful error messages that suggest fixes. Ensure keyboard input for form navigation.
4. Better Call-to-Action (CTA) Spots
CTAs indicate actions for users to take, like sign up or purchase. If heatmaps show that users are not seeing or clicking CTAs, it may simply be a matter of their placement, colors, size, or position on the overall page.
Fix: Move CTAs to a more prominent position like the top of the page. Increase the button’s size and ensure that the color is highly contrasting to the overall palette on the page.
Include empty space around buttons to attract the user’s attention and ensure buttons are easy to use for all users. Additionally, enhance the CTA by using a VPN and personalizing the placement of the CTA based on the user’s location, activity, or preferences.
What AI Does in Predictive Analysis
Unlike conventional models, AI heatmaps anticipate user behavior, which helps accessibility by pinpointing potential challenges before they affect user experience.
How It Works
- AI analyzes visitor interactions, gathering information about where users move their cursor, how they navigate the site, and where they pause or drop off.
- By examining historical user patterns, AI can identify spots that may cause confusion or annoyance to visitors before they become obvious problems.
- AI heatmaps not only highlight problems but also suggest possible solutions. For instance, if users are ignoring an important menu item, AI may suggest making it more prominent or relocating it.
Compliance and Accessibility
Other than being a matter of user experience, online accessibility is frequently mandated by law. Website regulations are established by laws such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Failure to abide by these guidelines may result in legal action, fines, or worse – closure.
By fixing accessibility issues beforehand, you reduce your risk and help everyone use your website without any issues.
