What is website accessibility and how can it help YOUR business?
Posted March 18th, 2008
Many web design agencies are still building websites which are not compliant with legal guidelines for web accessibility. There are several reasons for this such as lack of awareness, the use of old practices/dated technology and cost.
What is ‘Website Accessibility’?
Website accessibility is about more than designing websites for disabled users. It is about making sure that your site is available to the widest possible audience regardless of their web browser, operating system, connection speed or disability.
Legal issues
As a website owner you have a legal obligation to make your site accessible because under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Under UK law it’s illegal for a business to discriminate against people with disabilities.
Business reasons
Besides the legal and obvious moral obligations, accessibility also makes sense from a business perspective. Why turn users away just because they don’t have the latest browser, super fast broadband speeds or have poor vision/blindness?
Who does it affect?
There are many other groups of people who may have trouble using inaccessible websites including:
- People using mobile phones and other small devices to browse. These users are the amongst the most technically advanced yet still suffer web accessibility issues.
- People using old browsers or computers. Many companies have standardised on older browser versions (particularly Internet Explorer 6) and don’t use the latest computer equipment.
- People using slow internet connections, although broadband is now the majority there are still a significant proportion of users using dial up modems.
- The “Silver Surfer” is the biggest growing market on the web and has a large disposable income. This sector has accessibility issues such as reduced hand-eye co-ordination and poor vision.
- Blind, partially sighted and the colour blind are the most obvious group of individuals affected by accessibility issues. This group makes up a very large percentage of web users.
- People with physical disabilities, such as those with impaired mobility.
Each individual group may only account for a small percentage of your potential users, however all these percentages start to add up to meaningful numbers. On even a small site you could be turning many people away every day.
The benefits of having an accessible website
The fact of the matter is, making your website accessible to as many people as possible is just sound business sense. Benefits include:
- Ability to provide for niche markets such as the “Silver Surfer” or people using mobile phones to access the web.
- Accessible websites are more search engine friendly and lead to higher rankings and trafic
- Increased traffic to your site which can lead to increased sales/profit.
We hope that this has highlighted not only the importance of good website accessibility but also how it can benefit you and your business and not just the end users. As ever if you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to help.
