Taking care of web accessibility is a de-facto in the world of web design. Accessibility is ease to reach or access and utilize. Web accessibility on the same note means making your web page accessible to every computer literate in any form, and then it could be a disable too. The deep penetration of internet has lessened the margin of error and if you are missing on making your website accessible to your audience, you are surely hitting your own foot.
Following are the things which are needed, often, to provide an accessible web page, regardless to their platform. Though it is not necessary that the specifications are met every time, depends on individual to individual.
High contrast versions of your pages being available
Alternate text being placed on links and images
Links being appropriately named, for those with text-to-speech browsers
Testing your site without Javascript and CSS turned on
Providing appropriate META data
Making your website accessible does not limit it to disabled only. Web accessibility in true sense means that your website can be reached from any application such as 3G phones, I phone, gaming consoles, kiosk machine, WAP etc. Ensuring your web accessibility means that you are not stopping people coming from these resources to access your website.
Take care for those who are not visually perfect. Your choice of color scheme may not be clear to them so choosing an alternate, high contrast CSS document will be an good option.
According to a study by National Organization on Disability in 2001 on growing percentage of disables using internet shows that:
In May-June of 2001
38% of adults with disabilities used the Internet at home, compared to about 56% of adults without disabilities, a gap of 18 percentage points.
In December 1998
7% of adults with disabilities used the Internet at home, compared to about 26% of adults without disabilities, a gap of 19 percentage points.
In that 2.5 year period, the rate of home Internet use increased by more than 400% among persons with disabilities (from 7% to 38%). This increasing percentage is sure to attain new height in near future and overlooking to this number will be hurting your business.
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