Understanding Accessibility
by Vivienne Trulock
Accessible Ireland
The purpose of this website to promote accessible design.
What is 'Accessible'?
An accessible website should facilitate anybody, using any kind of Web browser, on any platform, to access and retrieve full and complete information.
Web accessibility can be defined in two ways:
- Accessible web sites are those that are accessible to the disabled,
including those who are
- visually impaired
- hearing impaired
- motor impaired
- cognitively impaired
- Accessible web sites are available to all regardless of ability, platform, or device
How do I know if my site is accessible?
You can check to see if your site fails the accessibility checks laid out by the W3C by running it through Automatic Accessibility checkers. This can automatically check your site against SOME of the WCAG 1.0 checkpoints. It will also identify where you may need to undertake some manual checks.
How do I make my site accessible?
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) have published a list of guidelines called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
There are 14 general guidelines, and within these are 65 specific checkpoints. These are specific things which you must do to have an accessible site. Many of these involve changing code, but others just require that you write as simply as you can, or to use a set of colours that allows everyone to see your content.
Some checkpoints are more important than others
Each checkpoint is awarded a Priority of either 1, 2 or 3.
- Priority 1 checkpoints are really important and must be done for the website to be accessible to the most basic standard. View the list of checkpoints for priority 1.
- Priority 2 checkpoints are quite important and must be done for the website to be accessible to a larger amount of people. View the list of checkpoints for priority 2.
- Priority 3 checkpoints are less important, but if they are done, the website will be more accessible to even more people. View the list of checkpoints for priority 3.
