Other Accessibility Pages…
- Accessibility (home) — overview of accessibility services from Hiltonian Media.
- What is Web Accessibility? — find out the basics.
- Your Legal Responsibilities — how does the Disability Discrimination Act apply to websites?
- Types of Disability — and how they affect Web users.
Why Bother with Web Accessibility?
Increased Audience
Nearly one-in-five of the UK population has some form of disability (Source: DRC; Office for National Statistics, 2005). Imagine submitting a business plan to the bank saying, “we plan to turn away twenty percent of our customers for no good reason” — they're not likely to give you that loan, are they?
With an increasingly aging population who are keen to get online, can you really afford not to take the needs of the disabled into account?
Business Image
If your business is seen to be taking an ethical stance on Web accessibility, customer perception will benefit. Conversely, if you are excluding people, your brand will suffer. Social responsibility is becoming an essential selling-point.
We live in an inclusive society of which the Internet is part; are you doing your bit to help?
Legal Compliance
It is mandatory for public- and private-sector websites to be accessible. Failure in this regard could lead to a claim being made against you under the Disability Discrimination Act.
Needless to say, this could be expensive and damaging to your business. Read about how UK law requires websites to be accessible.
Did you know…?
Accessible Web design is as much about using valid, semantic code (“markup”) as it is about using the correct fonts, layout and colour. This code tends to be much tidier than that created with traditional Web development techniques.
There are three key benefits to this:
- Reduced maintenance costs
- Faster page-loading for visitors
- Enhanced search-engine optimisation
Reduced Costs
Accessible Web development techniques tend to naturally produce cleaner, more maintainable code. As a result, website production and maintenance costs can be reduced substantially, freeing up valuable resources that you can deploy elsewhere.
Faster page-loading times
For the same reasons that help reduce cost, the code sent from the server to the user is generally greatly reduced, speeding up download time for visitors to your website. Recent research indicates that the maximum time a user will wait for a page to load is just four seconds — the bulky code typical in non-accessible sites will often cause that threshold to be exceeded.
If your website has a high volume of visitors, this can also reduce your hosting bandwidth charges.
Search Engine Optimisation
The techniques employed by accessible website developers tend to lend themselves to improved search-engine ranking. This is because the search-engines are more able to understand the structure of the document and index it more effectively.
Whilst this doesn't necessarily guarantee a higher place in the results, it is an important step to take if you are serious about driving more traffic to your website.
Futureproofing
Thanks again to accessible Web development techniques, such websites will work not only in the browsers of today, but in those of tomorrow and of the forseeable future.
Mobile platforms (such as phones, PDAs, etc) are continually growing in use and, one day, are likely to become as widespread for Web browsing as traditional computers (if not more so). Because accessible websites are developed to work with technologies such as screen readers, they are also ready for mobile devices with little or no modification.
Benefits for Everyone!
It isn't just those with disabilities who benefit from an accessible website — other visitors to your website will have a greatly improved experience. Who could argue with that?
