Accessibility
Website accessibility is an increasingly important issue; in fact websites are now legally required to be accessible to all under the Disability Discrimination Act.
It is important to recognise that your site could be used by people with differing types of disabilities and people working within different technical environments. It is not just obvious disabilities, like blindness, that your site needs to cater for but other disabilities such as colour blindness, arthritis, dyslexia and learning difficulties.
Your site can also technically discriminate against users. For example due to security policies some organisations do not allow users to use JavaScript, Java or Flash. Websites should be created in such a way that all Internet users can access the site irrespective of the technology they are using.
By making your site accessible you are ensuring a larger audience can more easily use your site. One of the main benefits of accessibility is that it forces you to think about the usability of your site and making it easier for users to find what they are looking for. Techniques used to make the site easier for disabled users will benefit all users.
An example of this is providing text equivalents for images. A blind person will use a screen reader to use a site, the screen reader will read out the name of the image if set. Some users prefer not to download the images on a website, especially those on a slow connection; therefore the alterative text for the image is useful to them as well. The rules / guidelines set out to promote web accessibility are used by search engines in their rank profiling of your site.
By making your website accessible to all users you are making it more accessible to search engines. Optimisation techniques such as CSS controlled layout mean that search engines can find the key website content quicker and more easily. Having an optimised site in terms of accessibility can give your site a higher ranking on search engines. Accessibility is an exciting topic and new guidelines and recommendations are produced almost daily, from how to make forms more accessible to why you should not use the words 'click here' or open a page in a new window. Foresite is committed to creating optimised and accessible websites that do not discriminate against users with disabilities.
To discuss how Foresite could help you with web accessibility, email info@fsite.com.
