Accessible web design 'should be the norm'

12/09/2008

It should be common sense for businesses to utilise accessible website design principles when operating online, it has been claimed.

According to Danny O'Brien of the Irish Times, accessible websites are a necessity in an age where disabled users must install different web browsers and screen-reading software in order to access the same information as everyone else.

Making a website accessible can include providing enough information for this software to be able to read text and images and avoiding complex technologies such as Flash, he explained.

Following these tenets of accessible web design can not only open up site access to all, but it can also help to improve search engine optimisation, Mr O'Brien noted, as engines crawl sites in much the same way as screen-reading applications.

He asked: "Why exclude any customer who has gone to the effort to find and explore your website?

"There should be no reason to turn anyone away, especially if, by making your website accessible to people with disabilities, you make it easier for everyone to find."

According to Ann Smarty of Search Engine Journal, web designers may want to employ some of the many tools available for checking website accessibility in order to ensure that their sites are also search engine-friendly, including Wave, Alt Text Checker and Lynx Viewer.