Web Accessibility
What do we mean when we talk about web accessibility? Well, in very simple terms, we mean a
web that is accessible to everyone, regardless of their situation.
- Whether you have the latest 4Mb ADSL connection or an old 56kb dial-up modem
- Whether you are using the ubiquitous Internet Explorer* or one of the increasingly popular Mozilla
browsers such as Firefox (you can download it using the button to the right), which now accounts for around 20% of all internet
users (browser statistics)
- If you cannot distinguish between certain colours or you are otherwise visually impaired and you use a screen reader for surfing the net or one of the many Braille
machines designed for use by the blind
A Site for Everyone
Rather than creating a separate site for each, why not create a single site
which caters for the needs of everyone? Using web standards set out by the W3C, accessibility for the masses (everyone) is now a reality.
World Wide Web Consortium
Web standards arose out of the chaos that existed during the early years of the WWW
and the subsequent need to standardise web authoring in order to gain some sort of consistency for web designers and authors alike.
The W3C started producing recommendations in 1996 and a group of web designers
called the Web Standards Project (WaSP) started to work with these recommendations.
This meant that web designers were gradually able to create web pages which would render reasonably consistently, independent of the
particular browser or operating system.
Accessible Sites
By employing web standards and proper coding practices, we can build a web that is both accessible and visually appealing.