Web Design and Accessibility

Ensuring your website is accessible isn't as hard asor (em) or use absolute size ([ xx-small | x-small |
you would imagine. There are a number of steps thatsmall | medium | large | x-large | xx-large ]) or relative
can be taken to make a website accessible.size ([ larger | smaller ]) when defining the font size
for a particular element within your web pages.
1. Page organisation. Use headings, lists, and5. Accessible navigation. Build your website so that
consistent structure. Use CSS for layout and stylethe pages can be accessed using only a keyboard.
where possible. Use structural semantic markup to aidFeatures such as ACCESSKEY and TABINDEX can
navigation rather than for presentation effect this willmake your pages easier to navigate. Ensure that the
help visitors with specialised software to understandaccesskeys you choose don't clash with keystroke
the organisation of the page and to navigate throughcombinations which have already been reserved by
it. Reduce information overload by simplifying textother applications. Skip links which bypass content
and by ensuring a simplified, consistent designand go to main navigation areas can also be helpful.
throughout the site.6. Use high contrast colours for text. Use dark text
2. Use valid code. Make sure HTML code is validatedon light backgrounds. For most people, this increases
against W3C standards. Not only does valid codesite readability. Also, consider that 10% of men are
make it easier for assistive technologies such ascolour blind so red/green or blue/yellow combinations
screen readers to 'understand' your web pages, butcan potentially cause a problem.
browsers and browsing technologies tend to prefer it7. Ensure links make sense out of context. Blind
too!people often skip through the links on a web page.
3. Write meaningful ALT text. Label ALL images withThis makes it vital that links make sense out of
ALT (alternative) tags; without ALT tags a websitecontext. 'Click here for more information on our latest
might be virtually unusable for a blind visitor. This alsoholiday offers' is a lot more useful to a blind web user
applies to all multimedia including audio, videos,than 'Click here' or 'Find out more'.
applets, etc where captioning and transcripts should8. Make forms accessible. All form fields should have
be provided.'prompt' text associated explicitly with them. These
4. Make text scalable. Partially-sighted people need toare called label tags. A web user can then click their
be able to resize text. Internet Explorer doesn't allowmouse or pointing device on this prompt text to
the resizing of text if font-size is set in pixels (px) ormove the cursor into that form field.
(pt) instead use relative length units such as percent