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Web accessibility refers to the practice of making Web pages accessible to people using a wide range of user agent software and devices, not just standard web browsers.
These user agent devices can be mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and a increasing array of mobile devices connected to the Internet.
You should always make sure that your website is easily accessible by people with disabilities such as visual impairment, hearing problems, etc. No amount of programming or design virtuosity can compensate for a site being hard or impossible to use..
Firstly, billions of people around the world who are browsing the Internet would benefit from this. Then, it will come to the people with disabilities.
These groups of people include:
People with visual impairments
For example, blindness, low vision, poor eyesight and various types of color blindness.
People with mobility problems
For example, difficulty or inability to use the hands, including tremors, muscle slowness or loss of fine muscle control. It can be also due to conditions such as Parkinson's Disease, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy or stroke.
People with cognitive/intellectual disabilities
For example, developmental disabilities, learning disabilities, or cognitive disabilities of various origins, affecting memory, problem-solving and logic skills.
People with auditory disabilities
Deafness or hearing impairments and individuals suffering from hard of hearing.
People suffering from seizures
Seizures can cause involuntary changes in body movement or function, sensation, awareness, or behavior caused by visual strobe or flashing effects.
Designing websites with accessibility in mind can often enhance usability for all users.
Website with good design can also deliver easier access for automated software programs that read website content, for example, search engines such as Yahoo! and Google.
It can also let people access content in their preferred way. This will benefit all users. With good accessibility, we can enable users with mobile devices who may want to enlarge text to readable size. We can also help those with visual impairments or dyslexia by changing the colors of text or the background to make it easier to read.
For users with dyslexia or Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD), there will be a need to stop moving images on screen as they are easily distracted. Improving web accessibility thus ensures that your website is usable to a wider audience.
Assistive Technologies - You can recommend these technologies to your users via your website so that they can get a better idea of what to use to overcome their difficulties.
Screen Reader
This is a software application that will identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen. This interpretation will then be represented to the user with text-to-speech, sound icons, or a braille output.
These are potentially useful to people who are visually impaired.
Refreshable Braille Display
This is used to help visually impaired users who are not able view text on a normal computer monitor.
Screen Magnifiers
This is a software that interfaces with a computer's graphical output to present enlarged screen content. This is most suitable for visually-impaired people with some functional vision.
Translation softwares
This software allows reading of websites in foreign languages especially for those who had been diagnosed to have learning disabilities.
Images and animations
You should always use the "alt" attribute to concisely describe the function of all visuals. Refer to the XHTML section on the alt attribute.
Be well organized
Ensure that your page is well organized. Make use of headings, lists, table summaries, and a clear and consistent page structure to make pages quick and easy to scan.
Using imagemaps
There are people who are not able to control a mouse. We recommend you to use client-side MAP to provide alternative text for image map hotspots if they are being used on your site. Check out HTML Goodies Image Map Tutorials for more details.
Using hypertext links
Descriptive link text improves access for those who cannot see. The links must also make sense to the users reading it.
Graphs and charts
Graphs and charts can be used to summarize the content. You can also use the "longdesc" attribute,to provide a clearer picture for the users.
Audio and video Content
You are strongly encouraged to provide captions or transcripts of audio content, and text or audio descriptions of video content. This can help those with visual or auditory disabilities understand the media content much better.
Scripts, applets, plug-ins
Always remember to provide alternate content for scripting, applets or plug-ins so that no important information is missed out when the software is unsupported or a feature is disabled.
Frames
Remember to label each frame with a title so that users will know what they are browsing or which frames they are using.
Tables
Avoid using tables to format text columns. Make sure the cell-by-cell reading order makes sense for tabular data.
Colors and effects
Effects: Avoid using blinking, marquee or other auto-scrolling text. Blinking occurs at frequency ranges that can trigger seizure. This is probably the only absolute no-no in website development that cannot be fixed with textual descriptions or other workarounds.
Colors: People with color-blindness cannot differentiate reds, yellows, blue and greens from one another.They also cannot distinguish any color from grey, as in black-and-white images. Therefore, choose your colors carefully when deciding on your website's color scheme, or design a skin or theme exclusively for them.
Object description
If an object is required to understand the page content or layout, provide a textual description of the object. That includes tables, links and images.
Here are some links that you can make use of to check your web accessibility:
Functional Accessibility Evaluator
- Test websites for use of "CITES/DRES HTML/XHTML best Practices"
t.a.w
- Tool for the accessibility analysis of Web sites, based on the W3C - Web Content Accessibility
PizzaSeo
- Tool for accessibility evaluation by emulating the text-only web browsers.
Basic Acessibility Analyzer
- Helps to check for basic accessibility issues in HTML documents.
The above are advice from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
You may visit the following websites for more details:
W3C WCAG Core Techniques
W3C WCAG Full Checklist
WCAG is mainly intended for web content developers (page authors, site designers), web authoring tool developers and web accessibility evaluation tool developers. WCAG and supporting resources are also intended to meet the needs of many different audiences, including people with disabilities, policy makers, managers, and others.
Some interesting facts:
In UK, the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 makes it unlawful for a service provider to treat disabled people less favorably.
In United States, amendments were made in 1998 to the Rehabilitation Act that require any electronic and information technology must be made accessible to people with disabilities.