WEB ACCESSIBILITY - AND YOUR WEBSITE

The ability to access the internet is increasingly seen as a fundamental human right. Tim Berners-Less, one of the inventors of the WorldWideWeb and a director the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) notes that “The power of the Web is its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect”.  Accessibility for the disabled, is a growing concern. While the United Nations set out guidelines as far back as 2006, countries have been slow to adopt them. But the tide now looks to be turning. The European Union (EU) implemented the accessibility best practices in 2010. In 2017, over 400 U.S. companies were served with lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because their websites were not deemed accessible to the disabled. Websites are increasingly recognized as public places, and therefore need to be more mindful of public accessibility. Today, more than 4 billion people use the web for: “education, employment, government, commerce, health care, recreation, access to information and more” (Source: United Nations). To be denied access to the web is an impediment to normal life and life’s opportunities in our 21st century world. Companies need to take note.

Let’s start with some background on Web Accessibility. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has always been a major advocate for website accessibility. The W3C is an international community whose members (some +/-500 of the world’s largest organizations), staff, as well as public contributions all work together to develop standards to help manage and organize the web. It’s good to know that W3C is still led by Tim Berners-Lee. The W3C's mission is to “lead the web to its full potential”. The W3C has its own Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) to deliver web accessibility to all web users. This has evolved into the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 which sets out guidelines and techniques. There are 12 guidelines organized under 4 principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Each guideline has testable success criteria, which are graded into three levels: A, AA, and AAA. Click this link if you want to go straight to the W3C source.

Our IBT Online recommendations for your Web Accessibility challenges:

1) Audit your website, get an evaluation on how to fix any lacunae. This can be done manually by WCAG 2.0 AA accredited web professionals (IT, web designers…), including IBT Online.

2) There are various online tools: check out W3C guidance, Selecting Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools.

3) A useful online tool is to plug your URL into this WAVE Web Accessibility Tool.

4) Check out relevant video’s, WCAG 2.0 explainers and service providers

5) Don’t forget to review your mobile applications…

6) Best of all, contact IBT Online and lets work together to get you Web Accessibility compliant

A full version of this article originally appeared on our ibt.onl website.

John is a founding partner at IBT Online at its creation in 2002. John started his professional career in London qualifying as a Chartered Accountant. Today, he is an acknowledged expert in the field of innovating international business development, with global website localization and international online marketing.