Accessibility for web sites, how to make web pages accessible

Accessibility for web page design

"Accessibility" is used to describe how easy something is for everybody to use, regardless of impairment or disability.

It is important for web designers to understand what can make sites difficult for some people to access, and what we can do to make it better.

The great thing about this process is that a site that's been built to be accessible to everyone will be accessible to more people than you even know use it, and the benefits are far-reaching.

If you make sure that someone with a visual impairment who's using a text-to-speech reader can understand your site, that means someone on a slow connection is more likely to succeed, as well as someone using a mobile phone, not to mention search engine spiders and other user agents you've never even heard of.

Available Guidance for Web Accessibility

There is a lot of good documentation on the web about accessibility. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the body that draws up standards to guide the development of the web, and has published a very thorough set of resources on the subject through its Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The WAI documentation is the best place to get a complete and thorough understanding of the problems we face, and guidelines on what to do. However, the documentation is very lengthy and pitched for a pretty technical audience.

In this section, I intend to boil down the mass of advice available on this subject into a few manageable techniques that all web designers need to know and employ.

The argument for accessibility in web design

There are 3 main reasons we should all strive to make our web sites accessible:

Because there is a significant proportion of people using the web who have one kind of disability or another. This includes people with impaired vision. Making a site accessible to everyone is not just the right thing to do – it’s good business too.
Because going through the process of making a web site accessible makes a better site. A lot of the things you have to consider, and techniques you’ll apply, will make your site easier for everyone to use.
Because there are legal requirements to do so. Government sites in many countries are already obliged to make all web sites accessible, and this legislation may soon extend to the private sector.