| An accessible website is one that allows as many | | | | engines and therefore help drive traffic to your site. |
| people as possible to access the infomation contained | | | | What does it entail? |
| within it. An inportant subset of accessibility is allowing | | | | Many techniques involved in making your website |
| people with visual, aural, or physical disabilities full | | | | accessible will have no effect whatsoever on the final |
| access to the information and services available in the | | | | look and feel of your site for the majority of users. It |
| same way as able-bodied people. Ensuring that your | | | | will however allow users with disabilities to use assitive |
| website is not dependant on particular hardware or | | | | devices such as screen readers (to read text out |
| software is also an important consideration when | | | | aloud to them) and assistive input devices (for people |
| building accessible websites. | | | | with physical disabilities) to access and use your site. |
| Is it worth it? | | | | Some of the key concepts are: |
| * At least 10% of the population in most countries has | | | | * To provide textual alternatives for all images and |
| disabilities; visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, | | | | animations |
| and neurological disabilities can all affect access to the | | | | * To ensure that textual content can be resized to the |
| Web. | | | | users peronsal preference |
| * Average age of population in many countries is | | | | * To ensure sufficient contrast between text colour |
| increasing; aging sometimes results in combinations of | | | | and background colour |
| accessibility issues; vision & hearing changes, changes | | | | * To ensure that hyperlinks contain text that describes |
| in dexterity & memory. | | | | their purpose. |
| * Many elderly and disabled people rely increasingly on | | | | * To ensure that hyperlinks are large enough to make |
| the internet to obtain their goods and services. | | | | them easy to select |
| Few organizations can afford to deliberately miss this | | | | * To use a consistent and easy to navigate layout |
| market sector. On top of this, accessible web design | | | | Other benefits |
| contributes to advantages for able-bodies users too. | | | | The robots that search engines use to catalogue your |
| Accessible websites: | | | | website are essentially 'blind' visitors to your site. |
| * Allow access to users of mobile phones, small | | | | Accessible websites are therefore more search |
| display scress, Web-TV and web-kiosks and other | | | | engine friendly and result in better search engine |
| new web=enabled devices. | | | | rankings and ultimately more visitors to your site. Other |
| * Increases usability in low bandwidth or slow | | | | advantages include: |
| connection situations. | | | | * Better structure means easier and cheaper site |
| * Provide access across a wider range of computer | | | | maintenance |
| hardware and software. | | | | * Accessible sites demonstrate that your organiation |
| Other extremely important benefits that make | | | | takes its social responsibilty seriously |
| accessible websites worthwhile are that: | | | | * Increased support for internationalisation |
| * Many governments now require certain websites to | | | | * Reduces hosting costs |
| conform to accessibility guidellines. | | | | I believe accessibility is beneficial for all involved and |
| * Accessible websites are easier to index by search | | | | should be a consideration of every website. |