 Designing Accessible Web Sites:
Why would any business or service provider want to make their services or products unavailable to a large proportion of society?
Many of your potential clients, customers, contacts, suppliers who visit your web site may be disabled in some way. Yet many web designers completely ignore their needs. Sites are designed purely as a visual medium with no thought given to other ways that people may access the information on your web site.
Designing accessible web sites does not lead to heavy constraints on your desired style of web site. Making a site accessible increases the clarity of documents and browsing is easier for everyone.
The growth of the World Wide Web means that many people with serious sight problems or blindness are now able to read and enjoy a great wealth of information which was previously unavailable to them, from news and reviews to timetables and online shopping.
But some web sites remain inaccessible simply because they are inflexible, or designed using code which cannot be read by all access technology.
How do people with sight problems read the Web?
Speech or Braille technology enables a computer to read web pages aloud or output the text to a hand-held Braille display. Some people with serious sight problems can read the screen if they are able to alter the background colour and text colour to suit their individual needs.
Some people require large text, while others can only read smaller text. Most people need a highly contrasting colour scheme, while some can only read yellow text on a black background. To cater for everyone, web sites should be flexible in design, enabling the individual to adjust the text and colour settings to suit their needs and circumstances.
Careful design is vital for people reading web sites in these ways as inappropriate use of HTML code can render some web pages unreadable.
Accessible web sites are readable by everyone, however they use the Internet. An accessible Web sites need not be dull! Attractive, dynamic designs, which are fully accessible, can be achieved. Web sites that are designed intelligently benefit everyone, not only people with disabilities.
Accessibility Options:
If you would like to undertake a quick bit of accessibility testing, try out these on a web site that you visit often. They are not really tests, just built-in options within the browsers that allow the user to change and configure the way a web page is displayed. Some sites can become almost invisible, whilst others just lose their looks. These accessibility options are available in the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. I make no assumptions about the browser type you are using nor am I suggesting that you should be using these particular browsers or the latest versions of these browsers! In fact, the Opera browser gives the user far greater control over the display of pages.
A Confession ...
This site is not as accessible as it could be. I am looking at ways to improve it and would welcome any suggestions.
Useful Links:
If you are interested in the issue of accessibility, here are some links to other web sites that you may find interesting.
Comments and feedback on this article are most welcome.
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© ziskadesigns. Date last modified: 24.11.00
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