What is Web Accessibility?

March 28, 2007

By — Nelson Chung

What is web accessibility? With Wiki’s being so popular these days, why don’t we consult one? Wikipedia defines web accessibility as “the practice of making pages on the Internet accessible to all users, especially those with disabilities.” That sounds pretty accurate to me. With the ever-growing web, it is becoming increasingly important to cater to those with disabilities. In the United States alone, there are an estimated 10 million blind or visually impaired people.

In December of 2006, a company called Nomensa was contracted by the United Nations to perform an accessibility audit on 100 leading websites from 20 different countries from around the world. Five sectors were chosen: Travel, finance, media, politics and retail. Of the 100 websites audited, only three achieved Single-A accessibility in WCAG 1.0, the most basic level of web accessibility!

By making your website and forms accessible to persons with disabilities, you not only provide them with a better experience, you also harness a huge portion of the population that might not have otherwise used your website or purchased your products. Make money and make the world a better place - that kind of opportunity doesn’t always come along, now does it?

We’re going to be talking a little about web accessible applications and even show you guys how to build an accessible web form in this issue of tips and tricks. Screen readers can be a fickle bunch, with big differences from one version to the next, kind of like browsers. So read up, and don’t forget to test! If you’re interested in learning more about web accessibility and different types of screen readers that visually impaired people use, check out the following sites:

Accessibility Resources

http://www.w3.org/WAI - The Web Accessibility Initiative develops guidelines and resources for improving web accessibility.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria - The WAI-ARIA suite overview explores techniques for creating accessible rich internet applications.
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/research/default.aspx - Microsoft’s page on research studies about accessible technology.

Popular Screen Readers

Windows:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/ - This is the Jaws Screen Reader homepage. Jaws is by far the most popular screen reader on the market.
http://gwmicro.com/Window-Eyes/Beta/ - Window-Eyes is another relatively popular screen reader.

Mac: