Trunk Media

Are you reaching all your potential customers?

• One in five (20%)¹ of New Zealanders have a disability
• Approximately 100,000 (2.4%)² of New Zealanders are blind or vision-impaired
• 12.3%³ of our population is aged 65 or over.

What is accessibility for web?

Web accessibility enables all users to have access to the web regardless of disability or situational limitation.

Web accessibility benefits everyone, especially:

• Disabled users
• Blind and vision-impaired, including those aged 65+
• Colour-blind users
• Deaf users
• Those unable to use a mouse due to cognitive or motor disablement
• Those with situational limitations including:
  • those using internet browsers on mobile devices
  • JavaScript turned off
  • older browser versions
  • slow internet speeds (dial-up).

Why is accessibility important?

Equal opportunity and increased reach

The internet has become an increasingly important way to communicate and interact in society, consequently the need for equal opportunity when using the internet for those with disabilities has also become greater. The internet provides a useful channel for people with disabilities to obtain information and services, and helps them live independently as full members of the community.

Accessibility for web helps increase a company�s potential customer base as product information and services are more readily available for both people with disabilities and other customers. An accessible site demonstrates a company's social responsibility.

Usability, manageability and search engine friendliness

The fundamentals of accessibility stem from well structured information written with standards-compliant code. An accessible website is easier to manage as content and presentational elements of the page are separate. A site that is accessible to web users will by default be more user-friendly and will also be more accessible to search engines, increasing web traffic and the overall effectiveness of the site.

How is accessibility measured?

Accessibility can be measured by reviewing sites against a standard set of guidelines (WCAG 1.0) developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C is an international consortium where member organisations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop web standards. The WCAG 1.0 provides a list of checkpoints for ensuring web accessibility; these are ranked as priority one through three.

Priority one checkpoints must be satisfied otherwise some users will find it impossible to navigate the website. Priority two checkpoints should be satisfied to avoid causing difficulty for web users. And priority three checkpoints may be addressed and if done so will improve access to web documents. Those sites meeting priority one checkpoints only are awarded "A standard" for accessibility, those meeting priority one and two checkpoints "AA standard" and lastly those meeting all checkpoints "AAA standard" compliance.

Legislation

In New Zealand the Government Web Guidelines guarantee minimum standards of accessibility for all New Zealanders, irrespective of their physical or technological constraints.

In the United States Section 508 of the Workforce Rehabilitation Act requires that electronic and information technology developed, procured, used, or maintained by all agencies and departments of the Federal Government be accessible both to Federal employees and members of the public with disabilities.

In the United Kingdom, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) does not refer explicitly to website accessibility, but makes it illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities.

Quick accessibility checks

• Conformance

   - sites should as a minimum meet priority one checkpoints in the WCAG 1.0

• Alternative (alt) text

   - all images, video and audio should carry an alternative text description

• Alt quality

   - the alt property of an image, image map, video or audio must be appropriate and convey the text equivalent

• Code validity

   - each page in the website should be run through an HTML and CSS validator

• Scalability

   - text on every page should use relative sizing so that text can be enlarged or reduced using the text size options in visual browsers

• Access keys

   - sites should be able to be navigated without a mouse. Keyboard shortcut keys can be used to provide shortcuts to specific page elements. Information about these access keys should be clearly provided

• Skip links

   - allow users to navigate to the main content or section of a page

• Structure

   - correct use of HTML heading and paragraph tags should be used to structure a web page so that meaning is implied from page structure alone

• Link quality

   - link text should be unique and contain a reference to the content of the target page. The text should also read correctly when out of context - meaning "click here" is wrong

• Page titles

   - should be unique and describe each pages content. A consistent format such as Page name - Section name - Site name improves site usability.

Summary

By developing to accessibility standards web developers have the ability to expand their clients audience and increase website usability and search engine friendliness. Accessibility benefits everyone, including those with disabilities such as blindness and those with situational limitations.

¹NZ Disability Study 2001
²RNZFB Cost of Blindness Report - NZ Disability Study 2001
³NZ Census 2006

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