Universal Access

The Internet has the potential to be a wonderfully enabling technology for many people, and especially for people with sensory, physical and intellectual disabilities. It can provide many with a sense of intellectual and economic freedom that was, simply, unknown, previously.

There is no disability on the Internet. Stereotypes vanish inside an email message, or in a chat-room, or in an electronic business transaction. Some people may require assistive technology - such as screen-readers for persons with blindness or voice-input systems for persons with mobility impairments - to overcome some common barriers but, in the right environment, the rewards are enormous.

Universal accessibility aims to ensure that web sites are developed to serve the largest possible audience using the broadest range of hardware and software platforms, and that the needs of users with disabilities, are considered. The blind and visually impaired are just one group of users that are affected by the advances in the graphical nature of web sites. Dyslexics and those with poor physical coordination are examples of other groups.However, development and widespread use of assistive technology often lags far behind the introduction of new and inaccessible features on the Web.

In a wider sense, the same is true for users of "standard" technology.

Web site traffic statistics often show that visitors to a site are using a whole range of browsers and operating systems. These factors are important because a web site can look and behave differently depending on which browser is being used on what operating system with what display. A site can look significantly different when viewed with a high-resolution display than with a less sophisticated system - let alone when viewed on a text-only browser.

Many web sites use complex screen layouts, and graphics without considering the accessibility implications. These sites are aimed at impressing and engaging the mainstream, non-disabled, visitor but they confuse and alienate people with visual, physical or cognitary impairments. New developments may be inaccessible to a wide range of web users, either because their hardware and software cannot support the new features, or because the feature was not designed with universal accessibility in mind.

For example:

Nor is safe to assume that people will be using "standard technologies".

There Is No Such Thing As A "Standard User"

Cumbersome, graphic-intensive, web pages take a significant time to download onto a visitor's machine. Population levels in rural and remote areas may be too small to effectively support services such as broadband access. Older, less expensive computers may not be able to benefit from high-speed delivery systems.

Therefore, some sites may be inaccessible to a wide range of web users, either because their hardware and software cannot support the new features, or because the feature was not designed with universal accessibility in mind. In the case of disabled users, even assistive devices offer no guarantee that they will then be able to access or understand a poorly designed web page.

Since users cannot count on either standard technology or other aids to ensure access to information on the web, the onus is on the site owner to deliver the message in a way that allows everyone to benefit.

Web site developers can still make web pages that are both accessible and visually appealing by following good accessibility programming practices and using the accessibility tools and guidelines available.

For example, Cynthia Says is a Web Site Accessibility validator that checks a web page for both accessibility and correct XHTML/ HTML markup.

Too many sites sport the disclaimer:

This site is best viewed using...

If you intend to use such a disclaimer, it should at least be honest and say:

This site is best viewed on my system and my monitor at my house.

For, if you haven't incorporated a basic level of accessibility into your site's design, that is about all you can claim with any conviction.