Web Design | Web Development
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What are Standards and Accessibility?
Standards and Accessibility
Standards are the prefered and mandatory methods and techniques by which Web Developers write the code that generates the pages of a website.
Its surprising how many 'New' websites are being written in very old styles. This may not seem important, if it looks the same, whats the problem? Well it can cost money in terms of the extra time taken to maintain or alter your website. It can cause accessibility problems as support for older browsers and features are dropped. With more and more power being built into the latest browsers and a greater range of devices being used to browse websites it is more important than ever to comply with the latest standards to optimise the accessibility of your website.
Accessibility not only refers to the way a website performs with a fully functional web browser but also how it performs when viewed with a browser that has features turned off or when accessed with specialist browsers like text only or audio browsers. It also applies to how a search engine sees your website and therefor how it appears in the rankngs. The Disability Discrimination Act requires providers of goods or services to the public, whether paid for or not, to be equaly accessible to all. That includes websites. The minimum standard of accessibility for all public sector websites is Level Double-A of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 1.0 (WCAG 1.0). All new public sector websites must conform to these guidelines.
If you would like to discuss making your site standards and accessibility compliant, why not contact me today!