How to Make Your Website Neurodivergent Friendly

Want to ensure your autistic, ADHD, or neurodivergent customers will stay on your website and reach out? Your neurodiverse audience won’t say what’s wrong with your website, they’ll simply leave because it’s too hard. (TBH, us ND folks have enough to struggle with and complain about! 😅 )

In this snack-sized video, I’ll share a few quick tips to make your website more ND friendly. You can implement these on a new website you’re creating, or in one you already have.

Related: Episode 024: Accessibility – Making your website better for all

Transcript

You know it’s wild. Many websites look beautiful but are impossible to use if your brain doesn’t process things in the usual way.

So let’s talk about how to make your website more neurodivergent friendly.

First of all, keep your navigation simple.
I like to say clear and not clever because when somebody is scanning your menu and they will scan it, they don’t want to play a guessing game.

So for example, instead of saying join the dream team, just say employment.
Instead of let’s connect or give me a bell, go with contact.
Instead of here’s our magic, just use services.

You can absolutely have personality in your design and your copy, but your navigation menu, that’s where people need clarity.
They need clear directions, not cute metaphors.

Next, avoid too many moving things or flashing elements.
Those can be pretty distracting or even overwhelming.

Then use headings properly.
They break up the text and help people using screen readers or if they are just like I said trying to scan.
And the majority of people when they’re looking for what they need on a website, they will scan the page rather than read everything word for word.

And don’t forget, give people some control.

A lot of people, especially your divergent ones, like having control of the environment that they’re in.
So avoid things like automatically playing sounds or music.
They’ll make a big difference.

And finally, test your site with real humans.
Not just your friends who will get you and your style, but people with different brains.
Because at the end of the day, a neurodivergent friendly website isn’t just accessible.
It’s easier and calmer for everyone to use.

We call that the curb cut effect.
When you make an improvement to help one type of person, it ends up helping many others.

And you can find out more about the curb cut effect in my podcast episode about website accessibility with my guest Nikki Vera.

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