[access-uk] Web Accessibility
- From: "Darran Ross" <darran.ross@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Access-UK" <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 13:32:25 +0100
Hi List.
Here's a short article about the above. Pointing out that its just a little
bit of consideration that designers need to show to make the web a more
pleasant place to be!
Darran
PublicTechnology.net
Please click
PublicTechnology.net
Web site accessibility: A perspective by Trenton Moss
Articles / IT Briefings
Date: Jun 11, 2004 - 06:45 AM
This article was written by Trenton Moss, of
web accessibility and usability consultancy webcredible.co.uk.
"The Disability Discrimination Act says that web sites must be made
accessible to disabled people. The DRC's recent report has suddenly thrown
this into
the spotlight of the online community and a lot of misinformation has been
thrown around.
1. Creating a text-only equivalent is sufficient
Creating a separate text-only equivalent can lead to a number of problems:
> A text-only version is not necessarily accessible
> Two versions of the same website represents a huge time and money
investment for you
> Your primary site may still be inaccessible to many users
> An 'extra' website for blind and disabled users can be one more way to
make them feel marginalized from mainstream society
Web accessibility isn't just about blind and disabled Internet users being
able to use your site - it's about everyone being able to access it -
successfully.
It really doesn't have to take very much time or money to make your website
accessible.
2. It's complicated and expensive to make my website accessible
To develop an accessible website from scratch will cost virtually the same
as to develop an inaccessible website. A very large, highly inaccessible
website
may take a bit more time and money to fix up, although the basic layout and
design usually need not change.
Web accessibility is not complicated and anyone with basic web design skills
can easily implement it.
3. Accessible and attractive web design can't go together
Many advocates of web accessibility tend to have rather dull, unattractive
websites. This is unfortunate, as web accessibility need not affect the
design
of the website in any way whatsoever. To fully dispel this myth, have a look
at the
CSS Zen Garden -
a beautiful website offering 100% accessibility.
4. Accessible websites stifle creativity
Web accessibility actually places very few restrictions on website design.
In fact, as with regular websites, you're only really limited by your
imagination
when creating accessible websites. Have a look at the
CSS Zen Garden
to see for yourself that creativity doesn't have to be affected in any way.
5. My site visitors don't have a problem accessing my website
Not necessarily. See
Benefits of an accessible website - part 1
to see just how many Internet users you may be excluding from your site. You
can be sure that with 35 million websites to choose from it's unlikely that
a site visitor prevented from accessing your website is going to waste his
time contacting you to ask you to fix the problem.
6. Web accessibility places restrictions on the web page design
Not at all. As with regular websites, you're only limited by your
imagination when creating accessible websites. Text size can be as large or
as small you
like (provided it's resizable), you can use any colour scheme you like
(provided colour isn't the only way you differentiate information) and you
can use
as many images as you like (provided an alternative description is
provided).
These provisos mostly happen behind the scenes and don't affect the
presentation of the website.
7. Blind and disabled people don't use the Internet
On the contrary, blind and disabled people benefit from the Internet perhaps
more than anyone else.
For example, visually impaired people have to phone up a supermarket when
they want to go shopping to inform them of their arrival. When they get
there,
a store assistant will accompany them around the store. Through accessible
websites blind people can now shop at home, and in their own time.
Conclusion
Web accessibility isn't brain science. It's not just about disabled users
being able to access your website - it's about everyone being able to access
your
website, including people using handheld devices, WebTV and in-car browsers.
Any web developer with basic HTML and Cascading StyleSheets design
knowledge,
and a bit of time on their hands, can easily learn and implement web
accessibility.
This article comes from PublicTechnology.net
http://www.publictechnology.net/
The URL for this story is:
http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1192
Contact Me By E-Mailing
darran.ross@xxxxxxxxxxxx
** To leave the Access-UK list, send a message with the Subject:-
** unsubscribe
** to access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
** Please do not put text or signatures in the message body
** For other things like setting nomail when on holiday,
** or digest mode, send a message, to
** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:-
** faq
** Please do not put text or signatures in the message body.
Other related posts:
- » [access-uk] Web Accessibility