Web accessibility: Open your online business to all02 March 2006
While the generation of profits and growth of customer base through a website is reliant upon eye-catching design and competitive prices, it is essential that any small business looking to get online understands how web accessibility rules could affect a website's structure.
Web accessibility
Web accessibility became a legal requirement in 1995 with the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). It demands that businesses and organisations do not discriminate against disabled people in terms of recruitment and employment, education provision and the offering of services.
As part of this, all businesses have also been obliged since 1999 to ensure that websites, intranets and extranets comply with accessibility rules. Currently this refers mainly to sites which advertise jobs or offer services which must be made equally available to everyone. For all businesses it is a good to be aware of how to make your site more accessible, regardless of whether it is directly affected by legislation at present.
Benefits to being accessible:
- Making the website accessible to all will improve sales as more people will be able to sign up for goods and services.
- An accessible website will give not just disabled people a good impression of your business, but is also likely to be easier for all to use.
- There have not yet been any cases brought against organisations in the UK regarding a failure on web accessibility and so case law guidance does not exist. As such it is better for small businesses to make an effort to be web accessible to all rather than risk it being "impossible or unreasonably difficult to access information and services".
How can you make your site accessible?
The DDA requires that organisations and companies make "reasonable adjustments" to their websites in order to be accessible. These may be taken as far as is reasonable in terms of your business and some of the measures are straightforward to apply. For example:
- Offering a telephone service so that information or transactions may be accessed person-to-person.
- Using a clear font size and avoiding setting to graphics so that the user may manually change it.
- Avoiding setting text against flashing or brightly coloured backgrounds to keep the font clear and legible.
For more information about website design, see our Web Design Studio package.
If you are interested in finding out more about making your website more accessible and therefore opening your business to a broader customer base, visit the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) website. Affiliated with the World Wide Web Consortium, WAI released the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) in 1999, which are regarded as inclusive international standards for making websites accessible.
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