Website accessibility Hints and Tips
Key disability groups affected by web access
There are key disability groups that have specific issues accessing the web, outlined below are some of main issues they have accessing the web.
Visual impairments
As a very visual medium, the Web presents unique problems to the millions who have low, restricted or no vision. For example:
- Insufficient contrast between text and background and small text size which cannot be enlarged will limit accessibility for many people with visual impairments
- For those who are blind and use adaptive technology called screen readers many sites haven't been designed with their needs in mind, particularly around the labelling of images, especially for links.
Hearing impairments
Hearing impaired people have particular problems with inaccessible multimedia, including video and audio clips on the Web, World Wide Web's Consortium's Web Access Initiative recommend that Web creators include text transcripts of any Webpage that includes sound or video and captioning for video.
Additionally for those whose first language is BSL (British Sign Language) there are words in English that do not exist in their vocabulary. For example research by the BBC found terms such as 'marinade' in their recipe section were not understood by BSL users, and they realised they needed to provide a glossary for such cookery terms.
Mobility impairments
People with mobility impairments face challenges when navigating and interacting with Web pages.
They may experience difficulty moving the cursor with the required precision or may lack the manual dexterity or hand-eye co-ordination required to use a standard keyboard. They will often use mouse and keyboard-alternative assistive devices or helper applications such as ahead wand or voice recognition software such as ScanSoft's Dragon Naturally Speaking.
To enable people with mobility impairments to effectively use Websites, designers should make their links standout especially when embedded in text and provide text or image separators between sequential links. Above all don't make your link font sizes to small, one of the most common accessibility complaints of mobility impaired Web users.
Cognitive impairments and learning disabilities
Cognitive impairments include dyslexia, memory impairments and attention deficit disorders. To improve accessibility:
- the content of your Website should be organised in a simple and logical manner
- sections of text should not be too dense. There should be sufficient spacing between lines, paragraphs or sections, use bullet lists to break up text
- text should be left-aligned. People with dyslexia find it difficult to read justified text, as the variable amount of white space between words is confusing. They may also miss words emphasised in bold, italics or underlining - usually the opposite of the designer's intention
- use graphical icons as navigation aids , but remember to provide a text alternative for images for blind Web users
- avoid design features which require the user to perform an action within a specific time frame, such as clicking on a scrolling series of options, such as a ticker tape with news stories
There is also software available for people with reading difficulties such as Browsealoud and Readspeaker, which read out in synthesised speech the contents of Websites that have been activated to work with the software.
