What Makes Web Accessibility A Key Factor For You?

There is a new law known as the Disability Discrimination ACT 1995 that makes it mandatory to have a website accessible to everyone. Have you ever thought what everyone really means? Well! Everyone includes people with visual, physical, hearing, or cognitive disability too.

According to the DDA, in the UK as well as US, you have to design your website to make it accessible for people with disability. There are two key reasons why web accessibility is of importance to you and they are:

• Market reach
• Revenue

Accessible website means that the distribution of information for educational, government and corporate site will streamlined and systematic. There will be more visitors, which will bring in revenue for e-commerce websites. According to the Disability Rights Commission, the approximate number of disabled people in Britain is 8.5 million and they have a total purchasing power of £40 billion. The point is that if your website doesn’t confirm to the disability law, you are losing out on a huge chunk of the market apart from being on the wrong side of the law.

The Internet is a visual medium and that makes it difficult for people with visual disability or impaired vision. There are people who have mobility impairments and can’t operate or co-ordinate mouse movements. There are people with learning impairments like dyslexia who may have problem understanding how to use your website navigation. Hence, to make your website accessible to these people, W3C has come out with the web accessibility initiative that includes a comprehensive list of web accessibility guidelines.

There are three priority levels in the WAI guideline, which are level A, Double-A and Triple-A. Level A ensures basic accessibility, double-A offers solutions beyond the basic level and Triple-A ensures commitment to accessibility excellence.