Web Accessibility
Design-Ecommerce.com provides web site accessibility consultancy services.
Web site accessibility means making web pages accessible to all users, especially those with disabilities such as:
- Visual (blindness, poor eyesight and colour blindness)
- Aural (deafness and impaired hearing)
- Cognitive (dementia and dyslexia)
- Physical or Motor (muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, stroke and Parkinson's Disease)
Solutions
Design-Ecommerce.com can either:
- Develop you anything from a small brochure web site to a more complex ecommerce web site optimised for accessibility from scratch.
- Optimise your existing web site for accessibility after an initial evaluation.
- Train you on the techniques involved in optimising a web site for accessibility.
Web Accessibility Benefits
The benefits to a business in acquiring a standards compliant web site optimised for accessibility, developed with XHTML and CSS, and without tables, include the following:
- Increased reach to special needs users (people who are disabled, colour blind, have a sight problem, or aged over 60 years old)
- Increased reach to different technologies used for accessing the Internet like Handhelds, PDAs, WebTV, Lynx browser, and screenreaders
- Improved web page download times
- Reduced bandwidth costs
- Compatibility with the latest browsing technologies
- Enhanced credibility
- Positive PR effect
- Higher search engine rankings
- Enhanced usability
- Easier management
- Web page print friendly
- Meet web accessibility legal requirements
To find out more about the benefits of accessible web site design, please refer to our more detailed page on web accessibility benefits.
Disability Statistics
There are approximately:
- 600 million disabled people worldwide
- 54 million disabled people in USA
- 8.6 million disabled people in UK
- 37 million disabled people in EU
- 4.2 million disabled people in Canada
- 3.7 million disabled people in Australia
Disabled people in the UK have a disposable income of £50 billion per year. (source: Employers Forum on Disability)
The annual discretionary spending of disabled people in USA is estimated at US$175 billion. (source: Employers Forum on Disability)
Disabled people in Australia have a discretionary income of at least AUS$26 billion. (source: Employers Forum on Disability)
Web Accessibility Techniques
Find out information on the techniques involved in optimising a web site for accessibility at our web accessibility techniques page.
Also, check out the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative resource suite: Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organisation and also the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for more techniques and resources.
Accessibility & Usability Evaluation (Audit)
If you already have a web site, then you may be interested in our accessibility and usability evaluation (audit) service. This entails a thorough analysis of your existing site's accessibility and usability strengths and weaknesses. Upon completing the evaluation, we report our findings to you together with any recommendations for improvement.
Training
We provide a one day web accessibility training course that covers the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in detail, as well as advanced techniques in web accessibility.
Resources
- The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative - strategies, guidelines, and resources on web page accessibility.
- Vision Australia - accessibility toolbar for Internet Explorer.
- Chris Pederick - accessibility toolbar for Firefox.
- Accessify.com - web accessibility news and resources.
- Cynthiasays.com - check web content for accessibility.
- Watchfire WebXACT - test web content for quality, accessibility and privacy issues.
- Dive Into Accessibility - 30 days to a more accessible web site.
- We're listed in the Web Site Accessibility section of the B2B Index.
Contact Details
Design-Ecommerce.com is based near Inverness in The Highlands of Scotland. To discuss your requirements, and for more information on our web site accessibility and usability services, please contact us by telephone on 01463 782830 or by email at info@design-ecommerce.com.
