Web Designing Tutorials

Legal concerns are the primary reasons that organizations are paying attention to accessibility issues.  Many governments have issued guidelines for accessibility including the U.S., Canada, Australia and Ireland.  The general public are beginning to consider accessibility as a civil right no different than the laws for construction that are in place to provide accessibility for the disabled in public and private areas.  In Australia, a person filed and won a complaint of Web Inaccessibility against the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games under the Disability Discrimination Act.  In the U.S., America Online lost a lawsuit with the National Federation of the Blind.  Accessibility is a true concern and should be considered by  Designers and businesses who develop Websites.

In the U.S., Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and its Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards directly address Web accessibility.  For details on Web Accessibility and the many legal issues please refer to the Resources on uiAccess website.  Even when the motivation for creating Accessible websites is legal, organizations will also benefit through the increasing number of people who can use their sites.

For Section 508 guidelines as written for the U.S. standards, please refer to the www.section508.gov website.

With this post I am beginning a new series that will address the importance of creating Web Accessible Websites and the things to consider when doing so.  The main reasons Web designers should consider Web Accessibility in their projects are as follows:

• Compliance with regulatory and legal requirements
• Exposure to more people: people with disabilities and seniors
• Exposure to more situations: new places, new devices
• Better design and implementation
• Cost savings
• It makes you look good
• Enlightened self interest.

Interest in Accessibility is not a new concept as the W3C established the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) with guidelines being finalized in 1999.  For more information you can check out the WAI Website.