Website Accessibility Tips

Website accessibility is one of the most important things to consider which your website. To comply with the law you must have a website that is easily accessable by both the disabled and non-disabled, regardless of the users internet connection speed of browser.

The Disability Discriminations Act

The following points need special consideration as the visitors to your website

• May be deaf, blind or unable to move
• May not be able to use a mouse or keyboard
• May have poor vision and have difficulty reading
• May have a small screen, low screen resolution, still using dialup
• May use a different browser or an earlier version of a browser
• Be aware it is an offence if you do not comply with the Disability Discriminations Act.

How do you address website accessibility?

We have included a list of general areas / guidelines that cause problems with accessibility that we recommend you review first.

• Do not use a website constructed using frames
• Validate all your pages and style sheets using w3.org
• Use automated tools for checking the accessibility of your website
• Make sure that all your images have alternative text (alt tags)
• If you use Flash or Javascript keep it to a minimum or apply the
• technology to parts of the website that are not a vital part of the website
• Increase your text size
• Look for semantic markup
• Disable the CSS to see what your viewers will see if they can not view
• style sheets
• Use a program like Fangs to emulate a screen reader
• Check your colour contrast

Tags: website accessibility