About 20% of the world’s population lives with at least one disability. Most of the time, these disabilities prevent the individual from fully benefiting from Internet resources. Many companies have a website on the Internet that has some kind of limitation for someone with a disability. Businesses that do not maintain accessible websites are ignoring a vital part of the population and since business owners trust web designers, it is the responsibility of the web designer to create accessible websites. Web designers use a variety of techniques to ensure that websites are accessible to users with disabilities; including, visual impairments, physical impairments, cognitive impairments, and hearing impairments.
People with normal vision can see images, understand visual cues, and understand the symbolic meanings of colors and shapes. However, people with vision problems cannot always understand the images and colors that are presented to them on a web page. There are different types of vision problems that affect website users in different ways. Web designers must consider different levels of visual impairment when designing a website. Visually impaired people; including, low vision, limited vision and color blindness have different accessibility needs that must be designed accordingly.
Accessibility for the visually impaired includes; text resizing, color contrast; including, alt and skip text, and screen reader support. Color contrast includes the use of colors that complement each other and font colors that are easily legible. For example, text background and font color that are too similar are difficult or impossible for people with color blindness to differentiate. Colors should also have the ability to be switched to black and white or enlarged without distorting. The size of the text is an important factor for people with visual limitations. Small fonts on a website can be very difficult to read and must have the ability to scale. Older people who need reading glasses would find it difficult to read small texts and would find the site cumbersome to use. When there are images on a web page, they must be tagged with an alternate source of information, known as an alternate tag or alternate text. Alt text allows assistive technology devices to read a website and interpret images appropriately. Skip Text enables assistive technology devices to skip content. It is used with repetitive and non-critical information such as the site logo on pages other than the home page and for menus that are in multiple locations on the same page.
Hearing is another classification of a disability that can affect the way a person receives information from a website. Technologies used on the Internet allow people to watch videos, listen to music, and use other types of audio devices. Web designers must implement technology and methods that allow hearing impaired people to obtain information using a different mode. Hearing impairments can be compensated by using accessibility strategies related to any type of audio on the site; specifically audio that communicates information. For web pages that contain audio information, a subtitle alternative should be available to people who need it. If there is a video embedded in a web page, it should also have a subtitle alternative for the hearing impaired. These alt tags can work in a similar way to those used for the visually impaired in that they are not seen by the sighted user, but can be accessed using assistive technology. Providing a transcript of web pages that offer podcasts will help make a site more accessible.
Accessibility methods designed to help users with physical disabilities can be more difficult to implement. The site must be designed so that users can access and navigate the entire website using multiple input modes. For example, a person with cerebral palsy may not be able to access a site that can only be navigated with a mouse if they use the keys to navigate the web. Web developers must program their web pages so that keystrokes, along with mouse input, can be navigated to navigate the site and its menus. This will provide multiple modes of entry for people with physical disabilities. A website must also be error tolerant and have consistent pages and menus.
Web accessibility for people with cognitive and learning disabilities is the most difficult to design. It is difficult to recommend design methods that benefit all users with cognitive and learning disabilities. This area is complex and its population is larger than those with physical and sensory disabilities combined. Websites should be designed with simple and clear navigation menus, keeping the page layout consistent and tolerant of errors. Clear language and the use of minimal text will also greatly benefit users with cognitive disabilities.
Specific accessibility guidelines have been designed for direct web designers, but they do not need to be used by commercial companies. As laws change, it will become more important for web designers to understand the various categories of disabilities and the techniques and guidelines that allow for the creation of an accessible website. Now is the time for web designers to start educating themselves on accessible website design for a variety of disabilities, so that they are prepared for the time when web accessibility is mandatory.