What is web accessibility?
Not too long ago programming web sites in a way that would not stop people from accessing the information was nothing but a noble cause. Recently it has become a law.
In the present most web sites do not fullfill minimum accesibility requeriments. Developing accessible web sites requires specialized experts and a strict use of available technologies.
Accessibility as a concept applied to the world of web goes further more than physical disabilities that condition the access to information. Som specific cases:
- Blinds: they are the group which most benefits from web accessibility. They use special browsers called line readers that speech aloud with a synthetic voice the text they find in the web site.
- Lack of visual sharpness: an accesible web site allows to enlarge font size without "destroying" the layout.
- People who are not used to computers often have information comprehension diffilculties or lack the skills to interact with human device interfaces: like keyboard and mouse.
- Users with slow internet connections or slow computers.
- Mobile devices, tvs and special screens.
- Computer software, especially web search crawlers (Google, Yahoo, MSN).
Luckly accessible developing rules benefit everybody, instead of being an additional work charge.
It is about doing things right: semantic code use, standards accomplishment and generating good contents.
- Web site benefits in SEO.
- Web site enlarges its target audience.
- People in special situations can access the information.
- The rest of users can access as well, in some cases, even in a better and simpler way.
Existent site auditing
Our proposal is:
- Making a full accessibility report for every page on the site.
- If the existent code is reusable, creation of a plan of action to implement the needed changes.
- Execute or supervise the plan.