Computer and Web Articles

Here’s an easy question: Do you have your own website? If you answered yes, here’s a more difficult follow-up question: How accessible is your website?

Web accessibility is what allows people with disabilities (as well as older people with changing abilities) to navigate, understand, and interact with websites. Disabilities that can affect users’ experiences on the web include visual disabilities, hearing impairments, motor disabilities, cognitive disabilities (such as dyslexia), and aging-related conditions. Visit http://tinyurl.com/552r7 to see different example scenarios of a variety of people with disabilities using the web.

When taking your website’s accessibility into consideration, make sure to ask yourself (or your web developer/web company) the following questions:

1. Have all image files in my site been given ‘alt’ text?
2. How compliant is the site with W3C coding standards?
3. Was the site built with valid HTML and CSS?
4. Is the site cross-browser compatible?
5. What does the site’s content sound like to people visiting with screen readers?

If you have (or if your company has) a website, I encourage you to learn more about web accessibility issues; a great place to start is at the W3C (Web Accessibility Initiative) website: www.w3.org.