Why Web Accessibility Matters
As Web technologies grow and develop into sophisticated and complicated information solutions, the disabled population tends to experience greater difficulty in navigating websites. Not all people with disabilities have problems using computers to access the web, but some disabilities can present severe obstacles. Those most associated with access difficulties are:
- Visual Impairment: Low vision, restricted vision or color blindness.
- Motor Skills: Inability to use a keyboard or mouse, inability to make fine movements, hearing impairment.
- Cognitive Abilities: Reading difficulties, dyslexia or memory loss.
- Low Grade Technology: Slow connections or old versions of software.
The bottom line is that websites should be easy for everyone to use, including people with disabilities. Web Accessibility refers to the design of individual Web pages that conform to set Accessibility standards such as the WAI put out by the W3C to ensure that all users can access the information on a site.
Who Web Accessibility Affects
In early 2000, the Americans with Disabilities Act was amended to include Section 508. This is an extension of the general requirements to make our facilities and services available to those with disabilities to include information on the Web. It is assumed that Section 508 will one day apply to all businesses, but currently in only applies to government agencies and their websites.
For the ordinary business, there is no legal ramification for not having an "accessible" website, but there are social ramifications and business consequences. While you may not be legally obligated to make your website accessible, not complying with the most important accessibility techniques can create the impression that you don't care about the needs of people with disabilities.
An interesting side-effect of making your site accessible is that search engines are better able to index your site, thus increasing your ranking at search-engine industry-leaders like Google. Not to mention that disabled visitors still have money to spend and not allowing them full access to your site decreases the likelihood they'll spend it at your site.
What we do about Accessibility
It is possible, and relatively simple to increase the accessibility of your site one phase at a time. On the initial sweep through a site, we address images and hyperlinks, ensuring that these navigational elements provide alternate text descriptions to help users without images understand the content on the site. At the next phase we perform an in-depth accessibility analysis that examines the behavior of specific HTML components like tables, frames, and scripts. As the W3C recommends, if it is not possible to modify an existing site, we suggest creating a text-based alternative site for users who are unable to access the site in its current form.
Accessibility Links and Resources
The Official Section 508 Website
The government's portal for Web Accessibility issues and compliance. A great resource for learning more about accessibility online.
The Web Accessibility Initiative
WAI is a workgroup of the W3C whose concern it is to ensure that new technologies are accessible to everyone. Their website provides checklists, guidelines, and other resources for creating accessible websites.
Bobby Worldwide
Bobby is a comprehensive web accessibility software tool designed to help expose and repair barriers to accessibility and encourage compliance with existing accessibility guidelines.
Google it: "Web Accessibility"