Many webmasters choose to exclude one in seven of their target audience.

According to Government statistics one in seven people in the UK have some form of disability.
People with disabilities need to use the web like everyone else and usability is closely related to accessibility. It is not only those with disabilities that will benefit from improved web site accessibility. The aim of anyone implementing accessibility techniques is to make the target website accessible in a variety of different contexts and all users will benefit. For example, accessible web sites will render better on mobile devices.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WAI) were released 1999 to make sure that any website is ‘universally’ Accessible. This means that the site is accessible to absolutely everyone regardless of ability or disability, and the technology being used.
The WAI standards have three level, priority 1, 2 and 3 which are also referred to as A, AA and AAA. The priority 1 or A standard is the easiest to reach and is recognised as the minimum standard by which a site can be considered accessible. However, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 were published on April 30th 2008, so this is likely to change.

As well as affecting your bottom line ignoring web site accessibility may put you on the wrong side of the law as you may be in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act.

A quick review of a web site can often spot many problems:

1.Make sure all images have alt text and if the alt text does not contribute to meaning of the page make it empty (alt=”“). Is this the case?
2.Do not use images to convey meaning when text would do. Is this the case?
3.Are all link names (anchor texts) meaningful? i.e. avoid “read more” and “next” links?
4.Do links with the same anchor text lead to the same page?
5.Links with different names should not lead to the same page. Is this the case?
6.Are access keys used? And does tabbing work in a logical way.
7.Does the page work with CSS turned off?
8.Can browser controls be used to resize text?
9.Are headings, lists and quotations marked up properly?
10.Are there text equivalents for video and audio clips?
11.Can animations be stopped?
12.Are tables only used for tabular data? Do they have captions and headings?
13.Is the language clear and simple without typos?
14.Are acronyms and jargon explained?
15.Are language changes marked up?

This excellent article was written by UKWW member tb987 who is also the owner of ????????TheHipZone.co.uk

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 10:47 pm and is filed under Design and Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.