Web Site Accessibility

Web accessibility means ensuring your website reaches the largest audience possible, in such a way that it functions correctly for anyone who accesses it, regardless of the technology they are using. Providing accessibility on your site helps more than just visitors with disabilities, it benefits everyone who uses your site.

Whether you run a small business, a large corporation, or a not-for-profit organisation, it is important that your website be accessible to people with disabilities. (See: Maguire v SOCOG - the Olympic web site case for information about what can happen if you do not provide an accessible site). An average 20% of the general population self-identifies as having a disability of one form or another. Catering to that market means a potential increase in your customer base, however it also means that your site will comply with legal requirements in many countries, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Germany, Canada, and others.

While Accessibility Standards & Guidelines focus on the needs of people with disabilities, experience shows us that applying these Standards & Guidelines improves the usability of your site for all your visitors. More people are surfing the web today using "alternative devices", such as handheld computers or web-capable cell phones. Standards compliant and accessible sites make it easier for those devices to render your site gracefully and deliver the information in a user-friendly manner. Building to Standards also provides a financial advantage above that of making your services accessible to a wider audience - it helps "future-proof" your web site and reduces the need for redesigning every time a new technology emerges.

Top 5 Myths About Web Accessibility

An accessible website costs more.

• Retrofitting an existing website does cost money. This is true whether you are updating your website to a new design, converting it to run with a different application, or simply giving it an overhaul to make it compatible with new versions of browsers.
• Building a new website with accessibility in mind generally adds little to no extra cost. This will, however, depend on your choice of designer and/or developer. Like everything in life, quality comes with a higher cost and web designers with experience generally charge more than inexperienced hobbyists.

An accessible website only benefits a few people.

• In the United States, it is estimated that 20% of the general population self-identifies as having a disability of one form or another.
  In June, the Harris Poll showed that adults with disabilities spent, on average, twice as much time online as adults without disabilities - 20 hours per week compared to 10 hours per week. Qualitative research is hard to come by but why risk making your website inaccessible to up to 20% of your potential market?
• Search engines are often referred to as the most significant blind users of the Internet. In making your website accessible to people you are also making it accessible to search engines. Can you afford to ignore the traffic that comes from search engine listings?

I don't have to do it.

• Few business owners take care to check on how human rights and disability law impacts on websites. If your country does not yet have such laws, keep watching - every year more countries draft legislation for web accessibility.
  At this time, anti-discrimination laws in much of the Western world, including the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, apply to websites and, as shown in the Olympic web site case I mentioned above, individuals can (and do) take action against websites that exclude them. The cost of accomodation is far less than the cost of a court case.
• Instead of asking, "Why should I do it if I don't have to?" the better question is, "If it doesn't cost much, if anything, why would I shut my online shop to a large proportion of my potential market?"

Building an accessible website is hard.

Not for those who know what they are doing. There are a number of factors involved in making a website accessible however any web designer worth hiring is one who builds sites that are Standards-compliant and who understands web accessibility. Choose the right people to work with and you will find that the process is no harder and no more time-consuming than building any other quality website.

Accessible websites are boring.

Sure, they can be - if you don't chose the right designer. While the web is a largely visual medium, web pages are created with HTML, a language that provides structure and meaning. It is this structure and meaning that provides the information to assistive technologies. Dynamic websites using JavaScript, Flash, or any number of whiz-bang technologies can still be accessible to blind and other disabled users. The magic is in knowing how to do it.

In conclusion, there are many reasons why your website should be accessible to everyone. Increased sales and a larger market are the primary financial considerations. Compliance with law is the major regulatory consideration. When deciding to build a new website or refactor an existing site always ask your prospective web designers about their experience with Web Standards and accessibility, ask for references, and make sure you see examples of their work. If they know what they are doing, you will get an accessible website.

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