Web Site Features For the Disabled Present Other Benefits

Does your site make it easy for everyone on the Web to do business with you? Have you considered the needs of the physically and technologically challenged? America’s official 54 million handicapped people alone represent an estimated disposable income of one trillion dollars, but they aren’t the only market you’d be servicing if you invest in making your site’s more universally user-friendly.

Realize this: the features that benefit online users with disabilities also benefit those users from around the world who are operating with severe technological obstacles. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a global organization that develops technical specifications for the Web, lists the following as limitations among worldwide Web users:

• They may not be able to see, hear, move, or may not be able to process some types of information easily or at all
• They may have difficulty reading or comprehending text
• They may not have or be able to use a keyboard or mouse
• They may have a text-only screen, a small screen, or a slow Internet connection
• They may not speak or understand fluently the language in which the document is written
• They may be in a situation where their eyes, ears, or hands are busy or interfered with (e.g., driving to work, working in a loud environment, etc.).
• They may have an early version of a browser, a different browser entirely, a voice browser, or a different operating system

   

Solutions offered to assist these challenged individuals include:

• Make sure that navigation on the site is HTML text-based rather than image-based.
• All on-site images should have a text equivalent so they can be accessed via synthesized speech, Braille or visually displayed text.
• Consider using an auditory description of images or content.

   

What Is the Benefit?

By addressing the web site challenges of the disabled, you improve your chances in gaining access to a more global market. Many Web users in foreign countries have very slow and poor Internet connections (broadband is primarily a U.S. phenomenon). Additionally, many foreign users pay for surfing time by the minute and do everything they can to speed things up. This includes turning off images, scripts (like java), sound, and video — essentially, they resort to simple surfing by text.

With the U.S. physically disabled marketplace being worth nearly 1 trillion dollars, just imagine what your global marketplace might be. I’d say there was a real benefit there!

Lastly, don’t forget that devices like cell phones and PDAs with Web access, surf by text only and that your universally-accessible web site efforts will facilitate reaching these users as well.

How to Become Compliant?

If your want a site that is truly accessible, you should ensure that it complies in full with all of the W3C’s Web page authoring “recommendations” (requirements, definitions, and standards). Another invaluable resource is called Bobby, a measuring tool created by CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology), a not-for-profit organization that that uses technology to expand opportunities for disabled people. According to CAST, Bobby was created help Web page authors identify and correct barriers to access by individuals with disabilities. When implemented, the suggestions made by Bobby helps make sites more receptive to the special browsers used by disabled people. The Bobby web site lets you test your own site…but we warn you, Bobby is strict and very unforgiving.

Related Links:

Bobby

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

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