 Why all websites should be accessible
From October 2004, you could be in breach of the law if your website is seen to discriminate against those with disabilities. Use our form to put questions to the experts in our members area, its free and easy to use.This article covers the misconceptions, issues and benefits of having a website that is accessible by all.
You may also find this report on 8 ways an accessible
site can help your business.
Misconceptions:
1) Accessibility is just about blind people.
Although it may seem to focus on blind people, Accessibility is about making websites accessible to the widest possible audience. This includes users with motor deficiencies such as Arthritis or old age which make using a mouse difficult or impossible, users with cognitive difficulties ranging from dyslexia to not being able to speak the language fluently or simply users that wish to access your website with a device that does not have a mouse, keyboard or normal size screen. By the end of 2004 over 743 million people will have access to the Internet via their mobile phones and PDA's.
2) Just create a text only version of your website.
This is too simplistic a solution and is not recommended other than as a last resort. Accessibility is similar to Usability in that it is not a yes/no situation. Websites can be easier or harder to use, similarly websites can be more or less accessible to different users depending on how the site has been implemented. A plain text website may be ideal for a completely blind user with a screen reader, but it is not going to make much difference to someone who can't use a mouse.
3) Nobody is going to sue me. In 2000 a blind person successfully sued the Sydney Olimpic organisers for approximately £8000 for not providing a sufficiently accessible website. More importantly it cost them far more than this to then re-develop the website to meet accessibility guidelines. A precedent already exists and the Disability Rights Commission intends 'get tough' with the 81% of websites that fall foul of accessibility standards. The legal issue is not really the point though as you will see that the non ethical/legal case for accessibility more than warrants the effort in making your next website more accessible.
4) Building accessible websites is too complicated and expensive. This is only partially true. Retrofitting an existing website may be very difficult, in the same way that making a 16th century building wheelchair accessible would be expensive to the point of being impractical. The good news is that most websites can be made more accessible than they are currently by making a few relatively inexpensive changes. Even so, if you wish to be as accessible as possible you need to plan your website with accessibility in mind from its inception. Costs of developing a new website with basic accessibility should be no more expensive than a non accessible website, higher levels of accessibility may cost more depending on the complexity of your site. The level of accessibility that your website can achieve is split into three levels, achieving level 1 is not difficult and should be the minimum that all websites should meet. The UK government currently recommends that all sites should comply with level 2 accessibility requirements, but the RNIB recommends a combination of all level 1, most of level 2 and a few level 3 items in order to qualify for the RNIB certification. Whatever level you choose, if you plan accessibility carefully from inception any additional costs should be more than covered by the additional advantages.
5) Accessible websites are ugly Developing accessible websites is a relatively new skill, so early accessible websites were indeed rather unattractive, netXtra has developed over 20 websites with varying levels of accessibility and in most cases, you would not be able to distinguish them from a non accessible website.
Issues:
1) How 'disabled' users access your website How a user accesses your site depends on their equipment and particular disability. A blind user may have a screen reader that literally reads out the content of every page, alternatively they may use a Braille reader which converts the content of the site into Braille. If this sounds hard, the experience has been likened to reading a book through a straw. In the case of users with equipment lacking a pointing device or users who cannot use a mouse, users typically 'tab' between links so careful implementation of menu bars is required to ensure that 'tabbing' works. Finally and probably the largest group, are those who manipulate the size of text so that they can read it more easily, this applies to the elderly as well as the young who increasingly will try and access your website through their mobile phone.
2) Development philosophy So how do you cater for such a wide range of needs? Well the problem is analogous to the browser compatibility issues that still face websites today. You can either create a different version of your website for each browser/user or develop websites using current best practice guidelines. It is now widely accepted that creating multiple versions is completely impractical and will never be able to cater for every possible variation. The solution is therefore to develop a single site and implement web standards and accessibility functionality. Although this means it will not look or behave exactly the same to each user, it will always work in the best possible way based on the limitations of that user or their hardware.
3) How accessible do you go? Like usability, the easier a website is to use or the more accessible a website is, the better, but obviously there are diminishing returns for additional effort spent in these areas. As with most things, the trick is to achieve the right balance between content, design, technology, implementation and testing. Making a single page website very easy to use and accessible to everybody is very easy. Achieving the same ease of use and accessibility on a large complex site would require a huge effort. netXtra can help you decide on a suitable level of accessibility as part of its design process.
Benefits:
1) Larger potential audience An accessible site means more users can access your website easily. In the UK alone you could increase your audience by about 8.5 million disabled users and the growing millions of users who are starting to use their new mobile phones to surf the Internet.
2) More visitors The single most important 'disabled' users are the search engines. When implementing accessibility, many of the changes make it easier for search engines to 'see' your entire website. If they can 'see' your entire site, they can then include all your pages in the search results, this increases your chances of being found, which in turn means more visitors will find and visit your website.
3) More loyal customers The principles of designing accessible sites, when applied correctly can make web pages faster and easier to use for all users. The faster and easier to use your website is, the happier your users will be and the more likely they are to come back or recommend you to others. Most importantly, happy users become loyal customers.
4) Lower long term costs Developing an accessible website using current best practice web standards means that websites are easier to maintain and re-skin, they also require less bandwidth and server capacity so can be cheaper to run.
Conclusions
1) Web Accessibility, when applied correctly, has greater advantages than simply making the website available to the blind.
2) Retrofitting accessibility is far harder than including it in the first place. So include it in your next site re-design.
3) Prioritise yet be sensible about accessibility, huge efforts in one area can be completely wasted if other areas are ignored.
To determine how accessible your website is, please contact us. For further details on making your website accessible, visit the Disability Rights Commission or read our report on 8 benefits of free accessible reports web sites. |
