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Pretty Simple web design : Accessibility

The need for accessibility

Accessibility is a vital part of web design, and an area that I take very seriously. Having an accessible website means you are complying with the Disability Discrimination Act, and shows that you have genuine concern for all of your users.

There are other benefits to having a website designed with accessibility in mind:

It will usually have far cleaner and standards-compliant code, so it will display more reliably on all browsers and platforms.
It will probably get more favourable listings in certain search engines.
It will often load more quickly.
It will, through the use of CSS, be easier and quicker to update or modify.

This site's accessibility:

This site:

has code that validates to formal grammars, set by the World Wide Web Consortium.
conforms to the double-A standards of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 1.0.
offers alternative text for any non-text elements, such as images, so that the content is available to non-visual interfaces such as screen-readers.
utilises skip links, so that users can go directly to the navigational area of the page.
correctly uses headings to give the pages a navigable order of content.
uses text sizes that can be altered by browsers, for ease of viewing.

Many of these are common-sense features that every site should have (but often do not). Some are more advanced features that only skilled individuals would be able to deliver correctly. Many sites claim to be more accessibile than they are, which has serious consequences for their reputation.