The use of the internet and business websites for a variety of business and leisure activities is now very widespread amongst first world economies and this includes 20% of the population who are elderly or have some form of disability. 

Some people with disabilities find using the internet difficult and we also know that many web sites do not accommodate people with visual or other disabilities. It is important that all business website owners strive to make their websites as accessible as possible.  If not, you may  be in breach of the UK Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). Similar legislation exists in other countries including the US, Canada and Australia.

Web accessibility should be part of your Digital Internet Marketing plan and is about making your website accessible to all Internet users (both disabled and non-disabled), regardless of what browsing technology they’re using. In addition to complying with the law, an accessible website can reap huge benefits for business by increasing the traffic to the site and enhancing the site’s reputation.

An accessible website ensures that all visitors have the same user experience whether they use assistive technology or not. As a minimum, websites should meet the level 1 (and in part level 2) of the W3C’s (Web Accessibility Initiative) standards and guidelines for creating accessible websites.

There are two very good reasons why businesses should start taking these issues seriously, simply put:

• An accessible website will make you more money
• An accessible website will save you money

For advice on web accessibility issues, contact Anthony Burke here to discuss this issue or any aspect of digital internet marketing.  Anthony runs his own business which is associated with WSI to provide companies with affordable digital internet marketing solutions to enable profitable growth and increase marketing ROI.  He is also a member of the British Computer Society, the Chartered Institute for IT, and a registered Prince2 Practitioner.

Technorati Tags: accessible websites, internet marketing, web accessibility

No, you can’t. They’re guidelines, not law. The only situation where accessibility guidelines aren’t an opt-in sort of thing is any sort of federal/government website. Anything that receives any sort of federal funding by law should comply with these standards.

That being said, it’s not really enforced except on major sites such as the Mass. Bay Transit Authority (who have an amazingly well built site, they got a Webbie for it).

Although the Act itself does not directly mention web sites, the ‘Code of Practice – Rights of Access Goods, Facilities, Services and premises’ does, and it is understood that therefore all government, education and business sites need to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to ensure a basic level of accessibility.

So, having started my position as web editor at the University of Salford and realising the legal requirement imposed by SENDA/DDA, I began delving deeper into the subject of accessibility. What I found was that, even among ‘seasoned’ web managers in the UK education sector and beyond, there was a lot of ignorance and confusion – coupled with misinformed management concerned with ‘Bobby validation’ as the be all and end all.

This sorry state of affairs, combined with the fact that, deep down, I feel that accessibility is simply the ethically/morally right thing to do, led me to explore this subject further. I find it fascinating that even though in recent years more and more sites, books and even conferences have been devoted to accessibility, there are still many grey areas once you move beyond the basics, where even experts can furiously disagree. It’s not all cut and dry, and in many instances one has to take a pragmatic approach, weighing up how things should be done (according to things like W3C specifications or even common sense) against how they work in practice (in light of flaky browser or assistive technology support, for instance).

Are there discussion groups or forums out there?

You can try to use the site bellow:

http://www.ecademy.com/module.php?mod=club&t=61656

Sean Keegan is the Web Accessibility Instructor at the High Tech Center Training Unit for the California Community Colleges. The High Tech Center Training Unit provides training and technical support to higher-education faculty and staff on the use of assistive computer technology for students’ with disabilities. As part of this continuing mission to improve access for students with disabilities, Sean conducts workshops and trainings to faculty and staff in the area of accessible web design, web usability, captioning of web-based multimedia, and the use of assistive computer technology.

http://www.htctu.net/

Duration : 1:20:38

Technorati Tags: berkeley, cal, uc, yt:quality=high

Duration : 0:6:6

Technorati Tags: andy clarke, for a beautiful web, peachpit video on demand, skip links, web accessibility, web navigation, web standards

Duration : 0:3:4

Technorati Tags: Accessibility, ADA, development, disabilities, imparied, internet, reader, screen, screereader, usability, vision, web

Special thanks to Armando Prini, videotaping of David, use of video studio SATB studios.

Duration : 0:4:5

Technorati Tags: Disability, Eramp, WCAG

I have found that maintaing too much accesibility features for a site sometime gives a negative impact to a regular visitors. Maintaing both web2.0 looks and feel, ajax, accessibility and SEO in same place is a real challenge for a developer. Sure, you can work on about all the business benefits like increased traffic, good PR but what you really need to be able to do is show that it’s possible to do this without compromising on the design. That’s often where the problems begin.

When we think about highly accessible sites, the first ones that spring to mind are not necessarily fantastic looking examples. There are very few sites which maintains all these standards and here goes a list of few I come across reccently:

http://www.wired.com/

http://www.lestout.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

http://www.espn.com/

http://www.onedayfilms.com/

So, in summary, there are many sites which need to follow web content accessibility guildines properly.