The ability for automated ‘readers’ to interpret web pages for people with disabilities is what has become know as ‘accessibility’. Creating accessible web pages become law for most British companies in 1999 but companies were given a five year ‘grace’ period in which to comply. Similar disability access legislation exists throughout Europe, the USA and much of the developed world. Clearly, the 2004 deadline would appear to have passed without too much action, although some major companies have attracted some very bad press through their lack of compliance. We estimate more than half of all sites are still non-compliant – check yours instantly and for free at http://www.totalvalidator.com/
WHY COMPLY?
Putting aside the moral obligations, potential for legal action and negative PR, there is another compelling commercial reason for making sure your website is accessibility compliant. The W3C design and production guidelines which ensure your website is accessible are essentially the same best practice recommendations made by search engines, particularly Google. So, if you want to give your site the best chance of success in Google, making it accessible will provide you with the best possible start.
What is W3C?
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organisation for the World Wide Web (W3). It defines the best practice guidelines which have become widely accepted within the industry and thereby become the de-facto global standard. The Consortium is headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the primary author of the original URL (Uniform Resource Locator), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) but perhaps more widely known as ‘the Brit who invented the Internet’.
