About Accessibility
Website accessibility is a serious issue that affects anyone commissioning or building websites today. The UK's 1995 Disability Discrimination Act obliges every business to take all reasonable steps to ensure their website is accessible to anyone with cognitive, visual, hearing or physical abilities. The USA, Australia and European Union all have similar legislation either pending or already implemented. The relevant points of the Disability Discrimination Act are:
- 2.2 (p7): "The Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public."
- 4.7 (p39): "From 1st October 1999 a service provider has to take reasonable steps to change a practice which makes it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of its services."
- 2.13 - 2.17 (p11-13): "What services are affected by the Disability Discrimination Act? An airline company provides a flight reservation and booking service to the public on its website. This is a provision of a service and is subject to the act."
- 5.23 (p71): "For people with visual impairments, the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include ... accessible websites."
- 5.26 (p68): "For people with hearing disabilities, the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include ... accessible websites."
Aren't websites a visual medium? How can visually impaired people use them?
There are various browsers available to make web content available to visually impaired people. They include screen readers (software that reads text aloud) and Braille readers. For these browsers to work, a website's content must be provided as plain text wherever possible. If your website relies on images or animation to convey information, visually impaired people may not be able to access that information. An alternative must always be provided, or better still, avoid using purely visual elements to communicate with the user.
What about people with cognitive disabilities?
The website's content should be presented in a clean, clear, consistent and easy to use way. Remember, keeping your site easy to use helps everybody, regardless of disabilities.
What about people with physical disabilities?
If your website depends on the ability to use a mouse, where does that leave someone who can't use one? Your website's navigation must be usable by anyone, regardless of the input device they are able to use. And again, making your site easier to use helps everyone.
Accessibility makes commercial sense.
According to W3C, the Internet's international governing body, anything up to 20% of people are affected by some form of disability. That's a large portion of your potential customer base. If you consider that 80% of websites are inaccessible to disabled users, making sure your website is accessible can give you a competitive advantage over your rivals.
Accessibility helps your search engine performance.
The same approaches that make a website accessible also make it easier for search engines to spider. The more accessible your website is, the better it'll do in search engines.
HardLight Multimedia's accessibility policy.
It is now our policy to make all our websites accessible to all users. Where a client requests features that compromise accessibility we will suggest alternatives to make sure the website meets legal requirements.
Is my website accessible?
We can provide an accessibility assessment of your business website free of charge. If it fails to meet basic requirements, we can suggest a course of action to rectify the problems. Contact us to find out more.
