Accessibility consideration and web design

While accessibility may not be high on the list of considerations for many web developers, there are many good reasons for making the effort. Least of all is the legal ramifications, especially for large organisations, should somebody feel discriminated against.

The only successful case of a discrimination case being brought against a website was McGuire versus SOCOG regarding the website for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. A blind person felt discriminated against because the site was not accessible to his braille reader. SOCOG was ordered to make their website accessible (at a cost estimated to be $2.2 million). When they failed to do so they were fined $20,000.

This case clearly shows that accessibility, while seemingly unimportant for most of us, can be a legal minefield. In fact, according the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) providing accessible websites is the law -- akin to ensuring access to commercial buildings for wheelchairs or audible warnings for the deaf.

Now, it may seem ridiculous to account for every situation in which your website may be viewed, however that is not the intent of the legislation. What must be done is to consider accessibility in the planning phase, and implement it un less it would create a hardship to do so.

However there are also more practical reason for enabling accessibility on your website. For starters, I've often found it helpful to increase the font size on website to make the content more readable. Not because I'm visually impaired, but because I use a wide-screen monitor at a high resolution. Using poor coding techniques can make increasing font size impossible, as can building the entire website in Flash, for example.

Another method for increasing accessibility is to use "alt" tags on your images, like an invisible description of its content. While most sighted people can simply see the image, visually impaired people rely on the text being read by screen-readers (this was part of the HREOC decision against SOCOG). It also has the added benefit of enabling search engines to better catalogue them.

So really, when it comes down it, often implementing accessibility on your site is in your own best interest. If planned right, it doesn't take too long to implement anyway.