Visitors and potential clients from around the world will decide if they want to do business with your company based on their impressions of your website. With this in mind, you have worked diligently to prepare your site. You have compiled site content which presents the best possible image of your company and developed a professional web design that will make your business stand apart from the crowd. You have done extensive market research and implemented strategic search engine optimization. Maybe you are ready to launch your web site, or perhaps your site has already gone live...but wait... could you unintentionally be limiting your client base - or worse - leaving yourself open for potential legal entanglements?
The United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities estimates that there are more than 650 million people with disabilities worldwide. With the Internet becoming an indispensable part of daily living, it would stand to reason that millions of disabled people are surfing the Internet. By failing to take into consideration the needs of various groups of users of your website you are unnecessarily limiting the people your site serves. However, ensuring that your website meets the needs of people with various disabilities can be complex.
Web accessibility is obviously a concern for blind and visually impaired users. Blind users may navigate web sites using screen reader software that uses a synthesized voice to read the content of the website through embedded data. However, this technology only works appropriately if the web site it is translating is designed to accommodate it. Users with some limited vision may make use of a screen magnifier. For this to be useful, a website's content must be readable if magnified, not becoming pixelated or distorted. Colour blind users may have difficulty locating links if they are identifiable only by colour. Deaf and hard of hearing users are unable to access audible content on a site and may require captions or sign language interpretation. Another concern for Deaf users is that often sign language is their first language and written language is their second language. It is important to ensure that your text meets the readability requirements of users for whom English is their second language as well as for users with cognitive or intellectual disabilities. Other things to consider are that flashing effects on websites may cause seizures in epileptic users and that sites with many links placed in close proximity may pose a challenge to visitors with mobility issues.
Your web development design must take into
consideration the needs of all potential users or it may mean lost clients. It also may have legal ramifications.
People with disabilities have the right to have full and equal enjoyment of goods and services. In some cases, businesses have been sued for discriminating against disabled clients by failing to provide accessible websites. The U.S. Nationwide class action against Target Corporation for failing to make its web site accessible to the blind is a prime example. As a result of this suit, in the state of California, website accessibility is now mandatory.
Ensuring that your web content is universally accessible can be complicated and time consuming. A web accessibility consultant can help you to ensure that your website accommodates the needs of all users and meets international accessibility standards. Through user testing and the implementation of various automated tools, a web accessibility expert can perform an audit of your site, identifying and addressing accessibility problems. An expert will be knowledgeable about how to create an environment that is accessible to people with various disabilities and will be experienced in balancing the need to integrate accessibility without limiting the effectiveness of navigating the site for other users.
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Angela Rowan is a Web-accessibility Consultant with Zufelt Technology Services. She provides educational services to clients with diverse needs, oral and sign language interpretation, and technical/web content writing.
