Who Controls The Internet? Is It Time For A New World Order?

It is a commonly held belief within the website design industry that accessible websites, almost by definition, cannot be as feature rich, pretty or as rewarding to the well-sighted majority as non-accessible websites.

How often have you seen links to “Accessible Versions” of websites? Versions that strip out all that is aesthetically pleasing from a website in favour of an insipid array of text. The website designer’s trade-off; create two versions of a website, one for sighted visitors and one for the visually impaired.

The truth however is that website designers, who really should know better, are not only completely wrong in this conviction, but they are also often completely ignorant about the extra benefits of creating accessible websites. Quite apart form the moral and legal obligation to make websites as inclusive as possible, doing so also has considerable payback for website publishers; a rare win-win scenario.

Accessible websites must be syntactically correct, i.e. they must be both structurally and linguistically correct. If they are not, then tools such as screen readers will struggle to interpret their meaning.

The World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3c.org) publishes accessibility guidelines called the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), for web designers wishing to build accessible websites. The same organisation also publishes the world’s standards for website construction technologies, so it should be no surprise that they are compatible with each other. This means that if you build your website in accordance with the W3C’s standards, then it will very likely be a long way towards being accessible too. So what is the payback? If your website is syntactically correct then not only screen readers can read it but also search engines’ spiders; which means that search engines will categorise the website’s content more accurately. Moreover, search engines will rank syntactically correct websites higher than non-syntactically correct websites as they will “trust” content originating from such sites more implicitly. Companies are very happy to spend money trying to improve their Search Engine Optimisation. If they hired quality web designers in the first place not only would they satisfy their corporate social responsibility but also their SEO ambitions!

However, the payback does not stop there. It is estimated that as many as 10% of the UK’s population has some sort of accessibility issue; and that is a significant minority! Web designers are often extremely vocal about making their websites browser compliant, even if the browser in question is extremely obscure and used by only a tiny fraction of website users; and these users have a choice! So is it not strange that some of these same website designers potentially disregard over 6 million users that do not have a choice about their disabilities?

If your website is accessible then it can sell its products to an additional 6 million customers that might otherwise have been put off. That alone is a compelling argument for accessibility! Moreover, this is just for the UK; if your website sells internationally then the opportunities are even greater.

Beware Content Management Systems
Nowadays it is very common for websites to have some sort of Content Management System, enabling their publishers to mange the content on their website. CMSs are extremely useful tools that enable non-skilled people to edit their websites; and this is the problem!

Reputable web design agencies will ensure that their websites are accessible when they hand them over to their clients; but once their clients start to edit them with a CMS they can potentially introduce code that is not accessible. Therefore, it is vital to check websites regularly in case problems have been introduced.

I noticed with interest that at the time of writing even the website http://www.accessibility101.org.uk/ which publishes tips and information about accessibility compliance failed level 2 of the WAI (it passed levels 1 & 3). So it just goes to show that you can’t be too careful!

Accessibility Auditing
Auditing websites for accessibility standards compliance would be an extremely laborious job, were it not for the tools that have been designed to help you to complete the process. One of the best known and most useful of these is Watchfire’s Bobby. It costs a few hundred dollars but will save you hours, by telling you precisely where you have problems and how to fix them.

It’s true to say that some of the syntax relating to accessibility is quite complex, so a solid understanding of both HTML and CSS are pretty much essential.

PAS 78
As mentioned above, the Web Accessibility Initiative, published in 1999, is a set of standards designed to inform website designers how best to build accessible websites. Since it is aimed at IT Professionals, it can be difficult to understand and does not tell people commissioning websites what they should be asking for. Released in March 2006 by the British Standards Institute and written in conjunction with the Disability Rights Commission, PAS 78 seeks to bridge this gap. It tells readers how disabled people use websites, how to define an accessibility policy and most importantly how to engage website design and auditing services. PAS 78 also covers web technologies and gives recommendations for involving disabled people in the development of accessible websites.

Links
http://www.accessibility101.org.uk/
http://www.watchfire.com/products/desktop/accessibilitytesting/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
http://www.bsi-global.com/ICT/PAS78/