Web standards and accessibility

Accessibility and web standards are an extremely hot topic for all developers and owners of websites, e-learning programmes and web-based software applications.

This is primarily due to the introduction of a set of development guidelines by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) under the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and recent legislation to ensure that disabled users are not disadvantaged by the Internet following the UK Government's introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

Accessible design refers to the philosophy and practice in designing web pages that can be navigated and easily read by anyone, regardless of ability, location, experience, or the type of computer technology used, such as speech to text browsers.

Accessible design is most commonly discussed in relation to people with disabilities, because this group are most likely to be disadvantaged if the principles of accessible design are not implemented. Failure to follow these principles can make it difficult or impossible for people with disabilities to access web pages.

We offer professional advice to identify which aspects of a project will be affected by legislation and the extent to which it will need to adhere to the guidelines to meet the appropriate level of accessibility compliance.

This in itself has many advantages as accessibly compliant web sites benefit from a greater level of search engine compatibility, resulting in improvements in ranking and when undertaken as part of the development process need not impact timescales or budget.

Compliance Standards

We can validate a web site against a number of  compliance standards, as defined by the W3C (www.w3c.org) and guidelines recommended by  other organisations, such as:

  • Valid use of HTML / xHTML
  • Valid use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
  • Disability Accessibility (W3C / WAI), Level A, AA and AAA
  • Disability Accessibility recommended by Watchfire (www.watchfire.com)
  • Disability Accessibility recommended by the RNIB (www.RNIB.org.uk)
  •  Disability Accessibility recommended by the UK Government under the DDA (www.disability.org.uk)