Accessability
The internet is a medium that should be open to everyone. However, perception often differs from reality and as such surfing the web can sometimes be a rather exclusive, rather than inclusive experience.
Poor accessibility means that everyday activities carried out online - checking email, reading a news story, buying flight tickets or balancing bank accounts - become a nightmare for many disabled surfers.
The good news, however, is the net is getting easier to use and there are many commendable efforts made by organisations to improve accessibility for the over half-a-billion people in the world who are disabled in one way or another.
Under the Disability Discrimination Act, companies such as ourselves must ensure that content is accessible to all users.
Accessibity for everyone is very important to us. We regard it as another challenge for creativity and innovation and not as a barrier. We strive to create a professional and accessible site that can be enjoyed by everyone.
What is accessibility?
Accessibility basically entails providing flexibility to accommodate each user's needs and preferences. In an internet context, accessibility means making computer technology such as web pages and applications/software more useful and flexible to an individual needs.
What are the main issues?
Sadly, the internet isn't always accessible to everyone. The main issues which can cause problems include:
- Nested tables used for layout instead of tabular data.
- Complex and convoluted navigational menus that have not been coded in lists and lack clear descriptions.
- Lack of accessable keys and headings for classifiying content.
- The use of none sizing fonts, which when small cannot be re-sized by the user.
- Use of embeded objects such as flash that have not been developed for accessability. The content of which may be hidden from screen readers.
- Providing content such as text in image form, together with a lack of Alt tags to accompany such.
The solutions
There are several ways in which websites can make themselves more accessible to all audiences. Above all, websites need to adopt certain accessibility standards.
Accessibility standards
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has established a set of guidelines so that organisations can design websites that can be used by people with disabilities. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), part of the W3C, in co-ordination with organisations around the world, is pursuing web accessibility through primary areas of work.
The current version of the WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (see Note 1 below) can be found at w3c.org.
Accessibility software
There is a number of software products available that can aid disabled users when surfing the net or with reading documents and attachments.
Screenreader - http://www.screenreader.co.uk/
A blind or visually impaired person can use a screen reader - basically a piece of software that reads out the content on a webpage.
Connect Outloud http://www.freedomscientific.com
Connect Outloud is designed for the novice to experienced blind or low vision computer user to access the Internet through speech and Braille output.
MAGic - http://www.freedomscientific.com
Screen magnification software.
Microsoft Word Viewer http://support.microsoft.com
