Benefits Of An Accessible Website: Part 2 - The Business Case
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Trenton Moss February 06, 2007
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Trenton Moss |
This article was written by Trenton Moss. He's crazy about web
usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own
web usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk ) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone. |
Trenton Moss
has written 3 articles for JavaScriptSearch. |
View all articles by Trenton Moss... |
The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) states that service providers
must not discriminate against disabled people. A website is regarded as
a service and therefore falls under this law, and as such must be made
accessible to everyone.
Some organisations are making
accessibility improvements to their websites, but many are seemingly
not making the accessibility adjustments. Disabled people don't access
their website, they say, so why should they care?
There are, however, two very good reasons as to why businesses should start taking these issues seriously:
1. An accessible website will make you more money 2. An accessible website will save you money
There are seven explanations for this:
1. Your website will be easier to manage
An
accessible website separates the content (the words and images that we
see on the screen) and presentation (the way that these words and
images are laid out) of each page. Each web page has an HTML document
that contains the words and images for that page (the content), and
calls up a CSS document that includes the presentation information -
this CSS document is shared by all the pages on the website.
To
adjust the layout of your website, you only have to make changes in the
CSS file, saving considerable time (and therefore money).
2. Your website will be compatible with new browsing technologies
In
the near future, the use of PDAs, mobile phones and in-car browsers
will all regularly be used to access the Internet. The people making
use of these new technologies are generally high-income individuals. In
order to reach this lucrative target, you'll need a website that is
accessible to these machines. To test your website, try using it with
the Wapalizer (http://www.gelon.net), which shows how your site will
look on a mobile phone.
3. Your website will appear higher in the search engines
By
making your website more accessible to web users, you're also making it
more accessible to search engines. Search engines cannot usually
understand images, JavaScript, Flash, audio and video content. By
providing alternative content to each of these, all areas of your
website will be accessible to search engines, who'll then be able to
have a better understanding of its purpose.
The more confident a
search engine is of your website's purpose, all other things being
equal, the higher it'll place your website in the search rankings.
4. You won't have to incur legal fees
The
RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) and the DRC (Disability
Rights Commission) have been exerting pressure on companies and the
government to make their websites accessible. Indeed, the DRC has now
published their findings from their accessibility investigation of 1000
websites. They've warned firms that they'll face legal action and the
threat of unlimited compensation payments if they fail to make their
websites accessible to people with disabilities.
5. The download time of your website will be significantly improved
Accessible
websites generally download quicker than websites with poor
accessibility. Just 25% of web users in the UK are connected to the
Internet via broadband (source:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/intc0504.pdf). You can be sure that
if your website takes much longer than ten seconds to download then
many of your site visitors will be clicking away and you'll lose their
custom.
6. The usability of your website will be enhanced
There
is a certain amount of overlap between web accessibility and web
usability. It's been shown that a usability redesign increases the
sales/conversion rate of a website by 100% (source:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030107.html).
7. You'll gain good publicity
Make your website accessible to everyone and you can tell the world about it. Benefits Of An Accessible Website: Part 1 - Increase In Reach |