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Benefits Of Making Your Website Accessible To Disabled Users – Part 2: The Business CaseTrenton Moss 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:
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 25% of UK 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.
| | | | RELATED ARTICLES Unlimited Wealth Creation Through Reseller Hosting Web hosting can be an exciting business start up for aspiring entrepreneurs. All you have to do to set up your business is become a hosting reseller, i.e., provide hosting facilities to website owners. Here as a business owner, you are buying space from a big hosting company, and redistributing the hosting space to other website owners. Can They Use Your Website In A TV Broadcast About Scams When you designed your website, you probably dreamt about how wonderful it would be if one day a popular TV program featured it, and you would become famous overnight, and make lots of $$$. Basic Design Principles Part 1 There are some very basic design principles that are important to know whether you’re a graphic designer, web designer, or even a photographer. Certain very basic design principles apply to all artistic fields and are necessary for the artist and valuable information for the consumer. Why a CSS Website Layout Will Make You Money Although CSS layouts have been around for years, they havent become so commonplace until recently. This was basically due to limited browser support especially from Netscape 4 - nowadays though, CSS 2.0 which introduced positioning is compatible with over 99% of browsers out there check out the browser stats over at http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/August/browser.php. How Do I Submit My Site To Search Engines Youve built up a good site, put in a lot of content, but none ofthe search engines lists your site If youd like to know how togo ahead with Search Engine Submission the right way, read on. Customers Dont Always Connect Where They Live Pop Quiz:You have an international website and you want to do business in Canada.But you want to make sure your website delivers top performance to your Canadian customers: speed, accessibility, as well as proper functioning of digital certificates, forms, password protections, shopping carts and more.In which of the following cities would want a website monitoring stationToronto, Canadas metropolisMontreal, Canadas second largest cityVancouver, Canadas third largest city.Ottawa, Canadas capital and fourth largest cityCalgary, Canadas fifth largest city. Open Source Free Software De-Mystified Did you know that the most powerful software and web applications are all freeYes thats right, just about every commercial software or web application you know of is most likely available as a free Open Source project/clone. Some Basic Tests To Check Your Website For Accessibility The Disability Discrimination Act says that websites must be made accessible to disabled people. So how can you check that your website is up to par There are a number of basic tests you can make to address some of the main issues. Webcredible http://www.webcredible.co.uk, a web accessibility and usability consultant, suggest a number of guidelines that provide a good start in increasing accessibility to your site visitors: Create your own Audio studio for under $100. Creating your own audio studio has never been easier. There are so many great products around today that will allow you to produce high quality audio for a fraction of the price it used to cost. Web Site Optimization: How To Speed Up Your Web Site By Minimizing Your GIF and PNG Image "Bit-Depth" Web Site Optimization: How To Speed Up Your Web Site By Minimizing Your GIF and PNG Image "Bit-Depth" What to avoid to make your website design effective The effective design is this one, which is maximum simplified, conformable to your users because they are your main purpose. This one, simply and clearly announcing what is your website about. This one, quickly offering the users exactly what they are expecting to see on your pages without being troubled with insignificant information. The big mistake made by lots of web designers is to project their activities from their own point of view, without thinking about user. E-Commerce Is Back On The Fast Track How much holiday shopping did you do on-line this year If you are reading this, then chances are good that you made at least one purchase on-line. Over 54% of all Americans did it [1]. A much higher percentage >80% of Internet users did it. Beyond Web usability: Web credibility Web usability: Its old news Track Your Visitors, Using PHP There are many different traffic analysis tools, ranging from simple counters to complete traffic analyzers. Although there are some free ones, most of them come with a price tag. Why not do it yourself With PHP, you can easily create a log file within minutes. In this article I will show you how! Choosing the Right Web Designer Introduction Online Marketing Law! Whats Happening You read that right. Theres a new law in California for online marketing. This law is thanks to the CaliforniasOnline Privacy Protection Act. "Im just me" - An Overview of an Web er.. Designer, Developer, Consultant and Friend "Im just me" - An Overview of an Web er.. Designer, Developer, Consultant and Friend. How to Choose a Quality Webhost If you are anything like me, you’d probably like to have a website on the Internet but you just have no idea how to go about it. All this talk of web hosting, bandwidth, disc space, and other jargon can cause one to say, “This is too complicated and technical, I just wanted to have a place to put all of my favorite skateboarding photos, cool information on ramp designs, and the best places to skate!” To get a website on the Web you have to go through a web host. The question is how do you find the web host for you Design Your Site For Traffic In 2005 What better way to start the new year than with more traffic to your web site. Web traffic is a critical part of your internet business and it is imperative that you design it to bring you the most amount of traffic possible. Having Your Personal Portfolio On The Internet Will Help You Infiltrate The Workforce And Get Your Identity ‘Out There’. If you’re an up and coming graphic/web designer just out of university, you’ll know it’s quite hard to break into the workforce. You have to contact employers one by one, spend your time traveling and lugging your portfolio to their offices. Well, things have changed, and for the better let me tell you. Now you can make your own on-line portfolio on the Internet, and send its web page address to numerous design companies at once so they can all see your work easily. You don’t even have to leave your house and organizations all over the world can access your work easily. |
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