Accessibility

What do you mean by “Accessibility”?

Many people have various difficulties when accessing the Internet.

Common problem areas can be described as following:

• Physical (blind people use special screen reading devices; colour blind people may find it difficult to distinguish text from background; some aged people may find it difficult to use the mouse due to arthritis, etc)
• Cognitive (overcomplicated context and structure may be of difficulty for many people, especially children or those with learning disabilities, or even for people who are just not very confident with computers)
• Technical (older browsers – Internet rendering software, have problems with many newer technologies; many big companies switch off certain components, e.g. Flash is often disabled in corporate environment)
• Circumstantial (mothers distracted by their children; travellers requesting urgent information, etc.)

back to top

Why to care about accessibility?

There are many reasons why we should care about web standards, here are some of them:

• Legal – the Disability Discrimination Act 2004 “makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate in certain circumstances as regards the provision of goods, facilities or services to the public or a section of the public.” (Sections 19 to 21 of Part 3)
• Ethical – we strongly believe, people should not be discriminated on any basis anywhere in the world.
• Business – it’s just does not make sense to lose any customers.
• Technical – accessible web sites built according to web standards usually download faster, and can also be better viewed by alternative devices, such as mobile phones.
• Financial – accessible web site is easier to be found by search engines (save on advertising), easier to print (save on creating alternative versions), easier to update or redesign, and has much more chances to stand the test of time (save, save, save…).

back to top

Statistics (in UK).

• About 14% of UK population are registered disabled (about 8.6 million people) and 1.6 million of them are registered blind.
• 10% of UK population are dyslexic.
• The UK disabled community has collective spending power of about £50 billion.
• 3.4 million people in UK have disabilities, which affect their ability to use the standard keyboard, screen and mouse.
• One in 12 men and one in 200 women have some form of colour blindness (about 9% of the UK population).
• About 12 million (21% of UK population) are aged over 60.

back to top

How can you tell that a web site is accessible?

The biggest authority in the Internet, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), developed Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These guidelines consist of number of principles, which basically deal with the following issues:

• easy to access and understand content
• easy control of components
• timeproofing of the content

There are various techniques to make a web site more accessible, and there are various levels of a web site accessibility.

W3C defines 3 levels of a web site’s accessibility.

At Natasha Hill Web Design Studio we create all web sites, as accessible as possible. For every web site we produce, we aim to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at least Priority 1 (1.0)/ Level 1 ( 2.0).
We also perform various offline and online tests, including http://webxact.watchfire.com (previously Bobby), an online checking service, to test a web site pages for quality, accessibility, and privacy issues.

back to top

How to increase text size?

If you find the text too small and difficult to read, you can increase the text size.

The process depends on what browser you use (the software which allows you to browse the Internet).

Generally, find a ‘View’ selection on the main menu, click on it, and try to spot anything like ‘Fonts’, ‘Text Size’, ‘Zoom’ or similar. Experiment with those ones to find text size which work best for you.

back to top

Below are the specifications for the most popular browsers:

For PC
Internet Explorer: 3, 4 : View > Fonts
Internet Explorer: 5, 6, 7: View > Text Size
Mozilla Firefox: View > Increase / Decrease Text Size
Netscape 6: View > Text Size
Netscape 7: View > Text Zoom
Opera 5 and 6: Use dropdown menu on 'progress' bar
Opera 7: View > Zoom
For Apple Mac
Safari: View > Text Size
Netscape 6: View > Increase/Decrease Font Size
Netscape 7: View > Text Zoom
Opera 5 and 6: Use dropdown menu on 'progress' bar
Opera 7: View > Zoom

Please, check how to use your keyboard instead of a mouse when browsing this web site.

If you have any questions or comments, please send us an e-mail or go to contact us page and fill in a small form.

Please, see also our Accessibility statement.

back to top