HomeAccessible web design
Users with disabilities represent 8% – 10% of the market (a conservative estimate - some estimates are twice that). Common website accessibility problems include image hyperlinks that can only be accessed with a mouse and offer no alternative textual description. This can make websites impossible to use for those accessing the site via a keyboard or speech recognition package. Similarly, audio-only information can't be accessed by people who are deaf. Flash based sites are frequent offenders - though since Flash 8 developers have had access to (rarely used) tools to produce accessible Flash.
Website accessibility means making websites accessible to as many users as possible, including those with disabilities. Users who are typically excluded from inaccessible websites are those who are:
- blind
- sight impaired
- motor impaired
- cognitively impaired (i.e. poor short-term memory or dyslexia)
- hearing impaired or deaf
An Accessible web design that is compliant with legislative requirements and meets the guidelines and criteria of the WCAG, is about not excluding groups of users, particularly those with disabilities, from accessing information and services on your website.
Common misunderstandings about web standards and accessible web design
A website made with the standards will be boring
This need not be the case but sadly often is. A standards compliant site has nothing to do with text-only web pages. Standards compliant and accessible web sites can and should make use of the latest web technologies such as XHTML, CSS (Style sheets), AJAX, Javascript, SVG (vector animated graphics), SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia) and SiFR (Scaleable Inman Flash Replacement). It is quite possible to provide highly interactive and design intensive websites using these technologies but still make them accessible to people with disabilities.
Standards compliance costs too much
Web standards make code maintenance easier and help to future proof your site. Sites render faster, are less error prone and more accessible to search engines and to users. Lack of uniform support for standards costs money, reduces the potential customer base and excludes many potential users. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for. If you don't care about standards for your website the chances are you don't care about standards for the goods and services you deliver.
Standards crush creativity
Creating within constraints is the mark of the truly creative. The coming together of web technologies with web standards has unleashed a wealth of creative tools.
Design companies with limited standards based coding expertise, often ignore web standards altogether and plump for proprietary environments like Flash. Such technologies offer unlimited visual creativity but often fail to provide for users with disabilities and frequently exclude non-disabled users as well. Flsh can be accessible but not in the hands of the majority of Flash developers. (Hands up all those who hate the Flash splash intro).
Assistive technologies
A number of assistive technologies can help those with disabilities with web access. Despite the fact that many of these technologies can themselves be proprietary and standards averse, for these technologies to work effectively it is essential that websites are designed to be accessible and are web standards compliant. This will become more so as truly standards compliant assistive technologies come on stream.
Legal requirements
In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 & 2005 (DDA) makes it illegal to discrimate against people with disabilities. The DDA applies to anyone providing a service in the public, private and voluntary sectors. The Code of Practice: Rights of Access - Goods, Facilities, Services and Premises document published by the government's Disability Rights Commission to accompany the Act refers explicitly to websites as one of the "services to the public" which should be considered covered by the Act.
The President of the Disability Rights Commission Bert Massie, recently commented on the appalling complacency of businesses and the public sector:
The Web is a way through which goods and services are provided and sometimes is the only way to access those services. If a disabled person is unable to access a website because of their impairment they might be able to take legal action against the organisation whose website it is and thus gain compensation.
Those who commission web designers and developers have a duty to ensure their websites are accessible. In particular, those who are using public monies to fund construction of their websites have an absolute duty to ensure they achieve a measurable level of accessibility compliance. The generally accepted accessibility guidelines are published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). However, even when tender requirements specify W3C Accessibility Guidelines compliance, the resulting web sites are rarely evaluated for conformance. This is usually because the commissioning organisations have no qualified evaluation resource and neglect to fund third party review.
Website Accessibility Audits
Standards compliant developers test their websites for accessibility guideline compliance. Your developer should produce a statement of compliance detailing how the site was tested and the results. However, on substantial projects the commissioning body should allow for third party website accessibility audits to identify accessibility problems and provide guidance on remedial action. There is a cost to this so build it in to your planning.
Formal testing is still rarely done and when it is, automated tools are often used despite the fact that there are relatively few aspects of accessibility, once you get past the basics, that lend themselves to automated checking. Beware of the “Bobby Approved” icon, this often simply means that the site has been run through automated checking and nothing else.
Ideally websites should be checked for accessibility performance by reviewers who are expert in web design technologies and accessibility and can provide detailed feedback and advice.
