Accessible web sites are those which facilitate easy access for people that are handicapped in any way.
Typically an accessible site might consider the needs of the elderly, or those who are hard of sight and using screen reader software to "talk" them through the contents of a web page.
There are many factors involved in making a site accessible, but a few of them include:
- The use of clear large fonts, contrasting against the background to make them easier to read for someone that is hard of sight.
- Colour blindness is an important factor, and an accessible site may not use colour to convey the meaning of the page.
- Images and multimedia files must also have substitute texts, so that someone who cannot see the image or media file does not lose the meaning that it conveys.
- Moving images, fancy backgrounds, flashing screens can all have an impact on accessibility, as can some of the scripts and programming languages that are often used to create a web site.
As a business it is to your advantage to make your site accessible, not only because it increases your potential audience to include people who are hard of vision or suffering from other handicaps, but also because you have a legal obligation not to discriminate against the handicapped. In extreme cases this can lead to legal action, such as the famous class action against Target.com, a famous test case by the National Federation of the Blind.
