DEMOS Project - Accessibility Guide: Introduction

Introduction

The key to accessibility is flexibility: websites designed to be flexible enough to adapt to the user's special requirements. In order to produce websites that are inclusive, i.e. easy for everyone to use, we have to consider the various ways in which webpages are accessed and perceived.

There are physical barriers: Some people cannot use a mouse but navigate each page via the keyboard or other input devices. Internet users with low vision might want to increase the font size of a page. People with colour blindness might not be able to identify link colours correctly. Others might not 'see' a web page at all but use screen readers or braille printers to participate in the information exchange that now seems so normal to us but still excludes a large part of the population.

There are also economic barriers to consider. Not everyone has access to high speed connections and therefore doesn't appreciates slow loading, graphics-heavy pages. Technology is expensive, especially assistive technology ^[?]; not everyone owns a computer or software that is capable of handling the latest design and scripting techniques.

(More information on How People with Disabilities Use the Web. )

A benefit of designing websites for accessibility is that it will also provide an improved experience for non-disabled users.

Definition

A website or electronic document is accessible when anyone can access the information contained in it, regardless of physical, economic or technological circumstances.

Accessibility refers to:

platform and browser compatibility (access via a variety of hardware and software).
access for users with disabilities (visual and hearing disabilities, physical disabilities / motor skills, language / cognitive disabilities).
access for users of different types of user agents (assistive technologies, such as screen-readers).

This is achieved through:

standard compliance of the underlying HTML ^[?] code according to W3C ^[?] guidelines.
compliance with WAI ^[?] accessibility guidelines.
validation of code.
testing in different environments.

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