Accessibility

When your beautiful web site is finished, you should be justifiably proud of it.  You've done a lot of hard work and put a lot of effort into your creation.  You want as many people to see it as possible, don't you?  That's why many webmasters consider the subject of accessibility as they design their web site.

Consider the following:

Your site may appear differently to people who use a different browser or different version of a browser than you.  A site that looks great in Microsoft Internet Explorer may look very different in Netscape, or Opera, or Mozilla, or Firefox, because they interpret the web site's code in somewhat different ways.  And certain components (such as Active X controls) may not work at all in some browsers.  If your code is not standard, or faulty, the results are unpredictable.

Your carefully-designed page that looks great in an 800-by-600 pixel resolution may behave unpredictably when viewed at a 1024-by-768 pixel resolution (which many people use).  Newer laptop computers may use still other resolutions.  (My laptop computer uses a 1680-by-1050 pixel resolution.)

The combination of colors that you choose may not appear the same on computers that aren't capable of displaying those colors.  And some people won't see your site's colors the same way in any case, because they are colorblind.  If there is not enough contrast on your site (for example, light blue text on a dark blue background), people with less than perfect vision will have great difficulty in reading your site.

Many people turn off certain features of their browser when they are on the Internet.  People with slow connections may shut off the display of graphics in order to save time, or may use a browser which displays only text.  (The Lynx browser would be an example.)  Some people may disable the use of JavaScript or Active X controls by their browser because of security concerns.  If you have information in pop-up windows, it will not be seen by people who have pop-up windows blocked.

Blind people may surf the Internet using special browsers which read the text aloud.  If your web page relies heavily on graphics to display information, or presents text in an unorganized fashion, the listener will have difficulty in understanding your web site.

Deaf people will not be able to hear any sound on your site.  If you rely on the use of sound to convey information, deaf people will not be able to utilize your web site.

It is far easier to add accessibility elements into your site during the initial design than it is to retroactively make a site accessible.  Here are a few things which you may think about doing when you build your site:

If you rely on color, or audio, or graphics to convey information, think about having text alternatives.

Be sure that there is enough contrast between your text and the background.  Also be conscious of graphics in the background that can make text difficult to see.

Think about making your site compliant with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Standards.  (W3C is an international consortium which establishes guidelines and standards for the Internet.  Its director is Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the Internet!)  A site with coding that meets W3C standards should be viewable in any browser.  The site you are reading meets W3C standards for HTML 4.01 Transitional.  There are several other standards for coding, such as for HTML 4.01 Strict, XHTML, CSS, etc.

Think about making your site accessible by people with disabilities.  The W3C has set standards for accessibility under the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).  WAI sets three standards for accessibility: Priority 1 (A), which a site must meet to be accessible; Priority 2 (AA), which a site should meet; and Priority 3 (AAA), which a site may meet.  The site you are reading is accessible at the Priority 1 (A) level.

There are several tools and web sites available which can help you with accessibility issues.  You should be aware that WYSIWYG web-building software, such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver, may use some proprietary code which will not be understood by some browsers and which will not meet W3C standards.  (The site you are reading was built with FrontPage, so it can definitely be done.)

Making an accessible site is definitely a lot more work than just making the site any old way.  But a lot of people you will never meet will be grateful that you made your site accessible to them!