The importance of being accessible

January 13, 2006

With the ever increasing importance of accessibility applying more and more to the internet, designers are finding more and more ways of increasing the level of access to their creations.

However, just applying tags to relevant objects to conform to validation and minor accessibility requirements is not enough.

When designing webpages, far too many designers rely on the fact that their viewers always look at webpages in 1024×768 resolution or above. However, older or more visually impaired internet users, who are not entirely blind, (therefore do not use a screen reader or other visual aid) tend to set their screen resolution to 800×600. Which, unless the page has been designed with this in mind can really mess things up. Also, text size settings are an important part of accessibility and should be set to small, medium, large, etc. After all, web browsers do have the option of increasing text size for the visually impaired.

I recommend that from the layout design process onward these possibilitys should be considered when sizing and correctly implementing your design.

Many clients are coming to realise that there are laws when it comes to accessibility, same as a wheelchair ramp is required by law on public buildings, websites must conform to regulations as well.

As long as all these regulations are adhered to as you progress through your design process, you will not run into any problems.

Tom Tong
Design and SEO Consultant
Just Search Ltd