Accessibility
What is accessibility about?
With over 11 million registered disabled people in the UK, and a growing elderly population, it has become increasingly important to make the web as open and accessible as possible to these groups.
In 2010, the Equality Act (2010) replaced previous anti-discrimination laws and sets out the different ways in which it is lawful and unlawful to treat people with disabilities, and supports individuals and groups with accessibility needs. Part of this act is the requirement that all web products must be accessible to all.
More information on this can be found on the Home Office website.
As a result of the importance of the issue in Britain there is a British Standards Web Accessibility Code of Practice, which provides guidance to all sectors on how to meet the accessibility requirements set out in the Equality Act (2010). This code of practice outlines a framework for accessibility when designing and building web products, and looks at the impact of poor accessibility on older and disabled users.
The code of practice Read More!
Why is it important?
To enable more people to experience the best of the web, it’s important to make all web products, not just websites, accessible to all. If you have an important message, or useful information that you wish to communicate to select audiences, it is crucial to make sure that no-one is left behind by a website that is not accessible.
The UK Government, RNIB and W3C – a consortium that develops standards for the web – all have accessibility standards that ensure web products reach certain levels of accessibility. The importance of this is growing, as organisations like the RNIB are starting to use their ‘teeth’ to attack companies who consistently fail to address accessibility. Read More!
Our experience
At Appius, we are committed to accessibility, committed to user experience and committed to the debate on how to achieve a balance. We have extensive experience of delivering websites to Government, RNIB and W3C accessibility standards, and we are experienced at working with clients to achieve their objectives of being WAI-A, AA and AAA compliant. In most cases this has been for full design and build projects, but we also have experience of delivering accessible templates for internal client build.
The Sitefinity and Ektron Content Management Systems provide high levels of accessibility compliance and our work with Sharepoint has extended to UK and European accessibility requirements.
Sitefinity Compliance - Read More!
Ektron Compliance - Read More!
Our tools for accessibility
When working on a major project, Appius usually recommends the generation of an Accessibility Approach Document, which allows us to consider the user experience, technology options and audience distribution. This document also captures your decision to communicate your efforts and reduce litigation risk.
We are a full service digital agency and recommend the consideration of accessibility from various perspectives:
- Strategy and legal
- As part of user centred design
- Considering Technologies
- Ongoing training and content management
Some of our tools include the following:
- W3C Validation Tools
- Cross Browser Validation
- Cross Platform Validation
- Assistive Technologies Validation
- User Testing
We are also partnered with HiSoftware, using their Accessibility Foundation Module (AFM) for ensuring accessibility across websites. The AFM makes ‘out of the box’ functionality in SharePoint 2010 more accessible and usable, as every control used on a site has the potential to cause an accessibility issue.
We would love to talk with you about your accessibility strategy and level.
Arrange a Call or Get in Touch Today!