New research has identified the most and least accessible websites for visually impaired people.

Coinciding with Blindness Awareness Month in October, the study from contact lens retailer Lenstore analysed 90 of the world’s most popular websites to find out how accessible they are.

Their findings highlighted some of the problems individuals suffering from visual impairments can face when surfing the web.

The company warned that there are over two million people in the United Kingdom alone living with some form of sight loss.

Lenstore analysed the websites based on contrast, anchor text, empty headers and text – all of which can make accessibility difficult for visually impaired users. The websites were then rated out of ten.

According to the research, PayPal is one of the most accessible websites on the web for visually impaired users, receiving a near perfect 9.99.

The payment services group achieved perfect scores for contrast errors, empty headers, and null, missing or empty alt text. However, it missed out on a 10/10 because five text issues were identified. These included links that go to the same location, creating additional navigation and repetition for screen reader users, as well as the use of PDFs which provide accessibility issues.

Two additional websites matched its overall score of 9.99.

Facebook Messenger was rated the most accessible form of social media at 9.98.

Other websites featuring in the top ten include the NHS website, which received a 9.96. It joined another five health-focused websites in the top ten.

Meanwhile, the study said that The Mail Online and The Sun Online are some of the least accessible sites on the web

The Mail Online scored 5.39 based on the very low contrast between text and background colours, which can create myriad problems for users with low visibility. The study found 60 errors of this nature on the Daily Mail’s website.

Furthermore, there were 27 missing headers, which can introduce confusion for keyboard and screen reader users, as well as 360 instances of missing alt text, which help visually impaired users understand any images they cannot see.

The Sun Online fared better, receiving a 7.66 ranking. The research counted 128 contrast errors that could result in visually impaired users being unable to read parts of the website. There were 416 additional text errors related to the website’s structure, links and headings that caused accessibility issues.

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These two were not the only news sites to receive poor rankings. The media industry had the worst overall performance in the study with an average rating of 9.21/10.

Most of the websites included in the study were able to score over 9/10 including the New York Times, The Guardian, BBC News and USA Today, the latter of which ranked highest overall with 9.89/10.

However, The Sun’s and The Mail Online brought down the overall average.

The research cited five ways that organisations can improve accessibility on their websites:

• Ensure that the alternative text conveys the content and function of the image accurately and succinctly. The alt attribute should be equivalent, accurate, and succinct.
• Some visually impaired users, especially those using keyboard and screen reader users, often navigate by heading elements. An empty heading on your website will present no information to them, causing confusion.
• Identifying the language of the page or portion of the page. This allows screen readers to understand the content visually impaired users are accessing.
• Increase the contrast between the foreground text colour and the background colour. Large text, such as those larger than 18 point or 14 point or in bold, does not require as much contrast as smaller text.
• Image links can be confusing to users accessing websites via screen readers. Include appropriate alternative text on an image within a link to guarantee that the function and purpose of the link, as well as the content of the image itself, is understandable.

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