Small business Web sites blog

Accessibility rough guide

Web site accessibility usually refers to the ability of people with a disability to be able to use (access) a Web site. Any good Web designer should take accessibility into account right from the very beginning of creating a Web site.

Why should my Web site be accessible

The first reason is that morally, it’s the right thing to do.

The next reason is a financial one, if your Web site is not accessible to people with disabilities you will be losing their business.

Disabled people also have enormous spending power as customers – around £80bn a year in the UK alone. (Disability facts – Employers’ Forum on Disability)

Do you really want to turn away all that money?

If your Web site is not accessible to people with disabilities then you could also be breaking the law. In the UK the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) states that Web sites should be accessible to users with disabilities, and other countries have similar laws.

Finally it’s interesting that many of the guidelines for accessibility are similar to Google’s guidelines for improving your search engine ranking. So an accessible Web site should also be more search engine friendly.

How do I know if my Web site is accessible?

There are a number of ways to test the accessibility of a Web site.

The best is to get users with disabilities to test the site themselves, this is usually done by asking them to perform tasks on the site, such as finding a telephone number or ordering an item.

While testing with real people is the best way, it’s not always practical, so there are also a number of guidelines that can be followed. The most widely used are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) produced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) who produce a number of Internet standards and guidelines. The WCAG has a list of guidelines rated as Priority 1, Priority 2 or Priority 3.

To be considered accessible, Web sites:

• must meet all Priority 1 guidelines (Level A)
• should meet all Priority 1 and 2 guidelines (Level AA)
• may meet all Priority 1, 2 and 3 guidelines (Level AAA)

Very few Web sites reach Level AAA accessibility and a Web site reaching Level AA is generally considered to have good accessibility.

However be careful about just ticking boxes on a check list. Some of the guidelines can be interpreted if different ways and they are no excuse for real testing or someone with experience in accessibility.

How much will it cost me?

If a Web designer wants to charge you extra for making a Web site that is Level AA accessible then look for another designer. Making a Web site AAA accessible can often involve extra work so charging extra for this may be reasonable.

If you already have a Web site that isn’t accessible then there is often no easy way to fix it. The best option is usually to start again with a new Web site.

So what now?

If you’d like to find out how accessible your Web site is then TwoLittleFishes can set up user testing of your Web site or put together a report on your Web site based on guidelines and first hand experience. Please get in touch to find out more.

TwoLittleFishes can also create a totally new accessible Web site for you, see how the process works.

---

Tags: Accessibility, SEO (Search engine optimisation), Small business Web sites

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 10:54 am and is filed under Small business Web sites.