Domino and website accessibility

A very good summary of web accessibility can be found on Wikipedia: "Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality." In my belief, everyone will have to make this effort sooner or later. After all, a website should reflect the qualities of the company, group or person it represents, and not discriminating people should be one of these.

Anti-discrimination law

In brief, disabled users should have the same quick access to online information, much like wheelchair users have to have the same access to public buildings and shops. In the US there is the Section 508 which requires U.S. government web sites to be accessible. Peter Paul Koch mentioned a similar law in the Netherlands in his Quirksmode blog. He recently published an English translation of the Dutch guidelines.

Techniques

When you are already building semantic, validating HTML, you are more than half way. A special benefit: most of the techniques to make a website accessible make it also score well in search engines. A few of the techniques used:

• Use semantic and valid HTML.
• Provide alternative descriptions for images and multimedia.
• Make shortcuts to the different sections of the page: navigation, search, content.
• Provide keyboard alternatives for mouse actions.
• Don't rely on color alone. Use colors with sufficient contrast.
• Allow font resizing by using relative font sizes.

Resources

• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center
• Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design
• Review of Free, Online Accessibility Tools