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Benefits_of_making_your_website_accessible_to_disabled_users_ _part_2_the_business_case
| Benefits of making your website accessible to disabled users - part 2: the business case
The Disability Discrimination Act states that service providers
must not discriminate against disabled people. A website is
regarded as a service and therefore comes under this law.
Some organisations are changing to their websites, but many are
seemingly not making the adjustments. Disabled people don’t
access their website, they say, so why should they care?
There are, however, two very good reasons as to why businesses
should start taking these issues seriously:
1.An accessible website will make you more money 2.An accessible
website will save you money
There are seven reasons for this being applicable:
1. Your website will be easier to manage An accessible website
separates the content (the words and images that we see on the
screen) and presentation (the way that these words and images
are laid out) of each page. Each web page has an HTML (HyperText
Markup Language) document, which contains the words and images
for that page (the content), and calls up a CSS (Cascading
StyleSheets) document that includes the presentation information
– this CSS document is shared by all the pages on the website.
To adjust the layout of your website, you only have to make
changes in one file, saving considerable time (and therefore
money).
2. Your website will be compatible with new browsing
technologies In the near future, the use of PDAs, mobile phones
and in-car browsers will all regularly be used to access the
Internet. The people making use of these new technologies are
generally high-income individuals. In order to reach this
lucrative target, you will need a website that can work on these
machines. To test your website, try accessing it on the
Wapalizer, a free program available at http://www.gelon.net,
which shows how your site will look on a mobile phone.
3. Your website will appear higher in the search engines By
making your website more accessible to web users, you are also
making it more accessible to search engines. Search engines
cannot usually understand images, JavaScript, Flash, audio and
video content. By providing alternative content to each of these
programs, search engines will have a better understanding of the
purpose of your website. The more confident a search engine is
of what your website is about, all other things being equal, the
higher it will place your website in the search rankings.
4. You will not have to incur legal fees The RNIB (Royal
National Institute for the Blind) and the DRC (Disability Rights
Commission) have been exerting pressure on companies and the
government to make their websites accessible. Indeed, the DRC is
currently investigating 1,000 websites for accessibility
(http://www.drc-gb.org/annualreview/foreword/index.asp#internet).
If your organisation’s website is on this list then you can
expect to be hearing from them soon.
5. The download time of your website will be significantly
improved Just 17% of web users are connected to the Internet via
broadband
(www.liquidzope.com/abc/2/4currentusage/currentstatebbd/view).
You can be sure that if your website takes much longer than ten
seconds to download then many of your site visitors will be
clicking away and you will lose their custom.
6. The usability of your website will be enhanced There is a
certain amount of overlap between web accessibility and web
usability. It has been shown that a usability redesign increases
the sales/conversion rate of a website by 100%
(http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030107.html).
7. You will gain good publicity Make your website accessible to
everyone and you can tell the world about it.
About the author:
This article was written by Trenton Moss of Webcredible
(http://www.webcredible.co.uk), the user-friendly website
experts. Find articles and tutorials about web usability, web
accessibility, web credibility, search engine optimisation and
CSS in the extensive web development resources
(http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/) area of
their website.
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