Over 1.6 Billion people use the Internet every day. (Source: Internet World Stats) No joke. Now imagine the potential impact that the web has on those people if a website becomes unusable, or even inaccessible. This potential impact becomes even greater if we look at websites that generate revenue (i.e. E-commerce). WebAIM believes that roughly 20% of the population has some kind of disability.
Web Accessibility in General
Accessibility is an incredibly important aspect of web design. A company, organization, or individual who wants to have a website needs to consider having accessible content. In some fields like government and education to name a couple, they are required by law to have accessible websites.
So what does it mean to be accessible? Accessible to what? Accessibility is about making your content independent on a person’s abilities or disabilities. Regardless of a person’s physical or mental condition, they should be able to access your sites content.
Disabilities are categorized into four main areas:
- Visual
- Hearing
- Motor
- Cognitive
Accessibility Tool for Designers
WebAIM offers a tool called WAVE that evaluates a web page for accessibility issues. Not only do I use this tool personally on all of my projects, but I highly recommend it to others who have a concern for making their sites web accessible.
You can evaluate your website with WAVE one of two ways:
- Download and install the Firefox WAVE toolbar.
- Go to WAVE’s website
WAVE offers you a lot of tools to use at your disposal. You can check for errors, look at the structure and order of your site, see a text-only version, disable styles, and much more.
What is nice about checking for errors is that it visually shows you where the errors (if any) are coming from. This can make your design and development process much more efficient as you can pinpoint particular areas of concern.
There is not a greater feeling than to see WAVE give you the thumbs up and the green light on your design. Designers and developers should always be thinking about accessibility in their projects.
I encourage you to try this tool and avoid eliminating a valuable audience.
