Web Accessibility Basics
Placed in Website Tips | January 22nd, 2010
What is web accessibility and why is it important?
Web accessibility is on your site to all Internet users (including disabled and non disabled), regardless of the browser technology, which they serve. In addition to compliance with the Act, an accessible website can receive great benefits for your site and your business.
Your site must be able, with any other browser technologies.
The first and perhaps the most important rule of web accessibility. Not everyone has the latest version of Internet Explorer, with all plug-ins and programs that make it necessary for your site. Different navigation technologies, anyone can use their own accessibility requirements, including:
Lynx Browser – text browsers, without the support of tables, CSS, images, JavaScript, Flash or audio and video
* WebTV – 560px wide with horizontal scrolling is not available
* Screen readers read – page content in order they appear in the HTML document
* Pocket Camera – Very small screen with limited support for JavaScript and large images
* Please – is as little as three to four words in a position on the screen at any time
* Slow connection (below 56kb) – Users can turn off images to allow time to download faster
* 1600px screen width – large screen
This essentially means that there is no guarantee your site accessible to all, you must provide alternatives to:
Pictures – in the form of ALT text
* JavaScript – All Day
* Flash – with HTML equivalents
* Audio and Video – with subtitles or written protocols
For increased accessibility of websites you must be careful how your pages when the support for CSS and / or tables has been removed.
There are two ways to check your site is available for all these:
* Download the Opera browser and read this article in controlling the Internet with Opera (http://www.sitepoint.com/article/checking-just-browser)
* Download the Lynx browser http://lynx.browser.org and see if you passed every part of the site access
Forms must be accessible to all users of the Web
When a user fills out a form, it is a great thing. People filling out forms to:
* Buy product
* Sign up for a newsletter
* Ask a question
These are the objectives of your site! A site visitor can search your site, decides she likes what he sees and tries to subscribe to your newsletter.
… But the shape is not possible for him so he clicks and you lose a potential customer. Most forms on the Internet suffer from problems of accessibility. The two main reasons are:
* Prompt text is not positioned correctly
* Prompt text is not assigned to form elements
(Prompt is the text that appears next to each form element, for example, ‘name’, ‘email’, ‘Comments’)
To learn more about you in this article about making your forms accessible (read http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-accessibility/accessible-forms-1.shtml) at.
It should be easy for all users to quickly process the content on your site
We do not generally read web pages. We scan, trying to find what we seek, as soon as possible. Scroll to regular monitoring, we are bottom of the page views of elements connected to the rest of the text: headings, links, bold and bullets. The non-keyboard and visually scan the pages once between topics and links.
To check availability of your site, use the headings, links, bold, and strive to ensure the balls and they contain a descriptive text. For example, never use “click here” for link text.
The structure and format should be completely separated
By separating structure and presentation of your website must be accessible and ready for the future of the Internet: PDAs, mobile phones, in car browsers, WebTV and 1600px screens.
The structure of a document is how it is organized, usually with navigation menus, headings, subheadings, paragraphs, lists and links. The presentation of a document is how these words and images that are presented to end users.
The basic principle of this Directive is to achieve with the help of CSS and no tables for the layout of your site. Read you use in our region for resources such as CSS CSS to improve accessibility of your website.
There’s more to separating structure and presentation on your web sites with CSS. Take a look at this HTML element list that tells you which elements are structural and presentation. For optimal accessibility of the Internet, we can and should be abandoned, the display elements, such as your website, they can lead to less accessible to some users.
The end user must be in control of your web pages
Any user who have unique requirements, how they use the Internet, according to the type of browser they use, or other type of handicap or disability. By handing control to your users, you will improve the accessibility of your site visitors to the website and you can use your site in a way that suits them best.
This accessibility guideline could mean that users can resize text, warning, because the links open in a new window, or provide a link at the top of the screen that the user directly to content .
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