Web Access for all

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), founded in 1990, has shaped the way we all do business. The law provides that persons with physical or mental disability can not be denied to participate in and benefit from public housing. We used to see lifts or ramps for wheelchairs available for multistory buildings, Braille provided on the bank ATM, capacity subtitles on television, and in parking spaces designated with a disability.

The ADA guarantees equal opportunity requirements for people with disabilities in public employment services, state and local government, hotels, shopping facilities and transport and requires the establishment of TDD / telephone relay services. All businesses must comply with the ADA. It is a federal crime to refuse to comply.

So why have companies neglected the needs of its customers Web?

Over 15% of all residents of the United States has some handicaps such as blindness, partial sight, color blindness, deafness, and those who have limited use of extremities, and can only use the keyboard or using voice commands. To browse the web, a surfer with disabilities need assistive technologies such as screen reader software that reads Web pages audibly. But the web page must follow the guidelines for planning and design to be read by screen readers, and few companies have followed the guidelines for accessibility, let alone heard of them.

In 1997, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international collective to develop technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential, established the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The initiative was established to develop and improve the international standard of design guidelines and programming to increase accessibility.

And in 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require U.S. agencies, government contractors and others receiving federal money to do electronic and IT services accessible to persons with disabilities and to develop services through an eight such guidelines are known as "Section 508". Because of Section 508, all U.S. government-related Web sites are currently accessible Web.

In October of 2002, Southwest Airlines was sued by Access Now, in Florida not-for-profit organization and advocate for the disability community, and Robert Gumson, a blind person who has had difficulty using the website to Southwest travel plans. Access Now said that the Southwest site was not accessible to persons with disabilities, and that the site had not been programmed with a text alternative that would work with a screen reader, thus denying him full access Gumson. Although a judge ruled in favor of Southwest Airlines, which was not a good source of positive publicity for the company.

As Web designers and developers learn more about the importance and how to implement web accessibility, can help companies to better educate and prepare their clients' websites. The aim to make any Web site accessible is currently self-directed initiative, until additional legislation is created to enforce accessibility standards in all commercial Web sites created in the U.S.

The advantage to increase the accessibility of your website are many. Not only increases the scope to disabled users with assistive technologies, but customers experience faster download times, save bandwidth, higher ranking in search engines, easier management of the Web site and cross-compatibility browser.

An accessible website becomes "forward compatible", ie the programming increases readers with current technologies such as PDAs, mobile devices, Web TVs, and future versions of Web browsers that are scheduled to follow the standards available to translate the code. There will need to reprogram your site every few years to adapt to the new browser.

The biggest advantage to increasing the accessibility of the Web is that it allows the website to reach everyone, not just disabled users .......