Accessibility

From JumbaWiki

Web accessibility is defined by Tim Berners-Lee (W3C director and inventor of the World Wide Web) as "access by everyone, regardless of disability". All web sites should be designed in a way that allows access by people who use devices other than web browsers, or who have other physical or environmental disabilities.

1 Physical or environmental disabilities
2 Accessible coding
3 Why accessibility is important to you
4 See also
5 External links

Physical or environmental disabilities

Things to be considered include:

users with visual impairments including blindness, various common types of poor eyesight, various types of colour blindness;
users with motor impairments, e.g. Parkinson's Disease, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, stroke;
users with cognitive impairments, e.g. poor short-term memory (as commonly caused by senile dementia), dyslexia;
deaf users or those with hearing impairments;
machines that don't have the latest graphical browsers and plug-ins;
users who have to surf with slow modems, or reside in rural or remote areas with limited access to the Internet;
users who browse without graphics, using text-only browsers or subscribe to non-graphic services;
where access is in noisy, high- or low-light environments;

Accessible coding

Some of the main principles of accessible design are:

providing text equivalents for any non-text components (e.g. images, multimedia)
using hyperlinks that make sense when read out of context (e.g. avoid "Click Here")
avoiding the use of HTML frames
using CSS rather than HTML tables for layout
authoring the page so that when the source code is read line-by-line (for example by screen reader software) it remains intelligible (Using tables for design will often not satisfy this principle)
using logical tags rather than visual tags. For example use instead of , and instead of
preventing the use of new windows opening on links

Why accessibility is important to you

Over 10% of the world's population are disabled. Aside from the commercial considerations of not making your website accessible to this 10% of the population, there are many countries that now enforce various Disability Discrimination acts, which require all web sites to show that they have taken steps to enable access. Some of the more high profile cases to make it to court over recent years have been:

The Sydney Olympic Games Committee were taken to trial for part of their website for the Sydney Olympics Games being inaccessible costing them $20,000. The 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens faced criticism that organisers had not learned the lessons of the 2000 Olympics.
In 2000 a court case was dismissed against AOL for software that was incompatible with screen reader technology because of a deal struck to rectify this with new releases of its software.
In 2004 Ramada and travel company Priceline had agreed to make changes to enable users of assistive technology such as screen readers to more easily navigate their web sites. The companies agreed to undertake remedial action, costing them upwards of US$40,000.
Target (USA) has recently been held accountable for their website being inaccessible to the blind. In October 2007 the judge granted class-action status to the lawsuit because they discriminated in "enjoyment of goods, services, facilities or privileges".

A little extra time or expense taken now, can avoid costly repercussions later on.