Web Accessibility and NS Web Solutions
Web accessibility is about making your website accessible to all Internet users (both disabled and non-disabled), regardless of what browsing technology they're using.
Accessible websites usually see a large increase in traffic as they become available to all Internet users. Web accessibility is extremely important as a website that's optimised in web accessibility has numerous benefits:
Fulfilling legal obligation
- In 1995 the Disability Discrimination Act was passed
- In 1999 part III of the Act, which refers to service providers, came into force
- In 2002 the Code of Practice for part III of the Act was published and specifically mentions that accessible websites are now a legal requirement
Maximising access to your website
Nowadays websites can be viewed in a variety of different formats, each one facing different accessibility issues:
- Lynx browser - Text-only browser with no support for tables, CSS, images, JavaScript, Flash or audio and video content
- WebTV - 560px in width with horizontal scrolling not available
- Screen reader - Reads the content of the page in the order it appears in the HTML document
- Handheld device - Very small screen with limited support for JavaScript and large images
The number of people accessing the Internet from handheld devices is increasing at a massive rate - almost three million PDAs were sold in 2002 in Europe and in 2008 there'll be an estimated 58 million PDAs sold worldwide.
Less time-consuming to manage
An accessible website separates the content (the words and images that we see on the screen) and presentation (the way that these words and images are laid out) of each page. Each web page has an HTML document which contains the words and images for that page (the content), and calls up a stylesheet document containing the presentation information - this stylesheet document is shared by all the pages on the website. Therefore, to change the layout of your website you only have to make changes in one file, saving considerable time (and therefore money) .
Ready for the future
Inaccessible websites struggle to cope with the variety of methods that are being used to access the Internet, especially handheld devices . If your website isn't accessible within the next five years there will be a large number of Internet users who can't access your website . By making the necessary adjustments now you'll be creating a long-term future for your website.
Higher search engine ranking
A website accessible to humans is also accessible to search engines. Search engines can't usually understand images, JavaScript, Flash, audio and video content. Search engines will be able to understand the purpose of your website more easily if you provide alternative content to each of these. The more confident a search engine is of what your website is about, all other things being equal, the higher in the search rankings it'll place your website.
