Accesible Web Design @ Jimsky's Emporium

You may never have realised it - but blind and partially sighted people actually surf the web.

To make your site accessible to them - is relatively easy. It is after all - an "EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES ISSUE" - and it costs nothing at all (bar a few extra minutes HTML coding) to open your web site up to everyone. If your a 'caring' sort of a person as well, it actually makes you feel good too !!!

What you don't need to do - is put everything in capital letters and use a big font.

What you do need to do - is to take care that you write good quality HTML and just make sure you add certain HTML commands to your web pages.

I've added a few links below to get you to the informative articles that explain it all in more detail, but by doing just the 4 things listed below - your sites "ACCESSIBILITY" will dramatically improve

4 QUICK TIPS

• IMAGES - make sure all your images have and "ALT" tag in the HTML. Its the alt tag that describes what the image is to a blind person (ALTernative text).
  As an example - here is the HTML from my page for my own picture image:-
  <......img src="jimsky.jpg" width="100" height="131" alt="a picture of Jimsky" /......>
• LINKS - Try and be explicit about where your page links actually go. "CLICK HERE" isn't normally too informative is it. Try using the "TITLE" tag in your HTML and this will clarify the link immensely
  As an example - one link on my page is to validate the HTML - and the link is:-
  <......a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/jimflack/index.html " title="link to Validate page as XHTML1.0".....>
  so hopefully the "title" explains where you about to go
• BACKGROUNDS - Single solid colours are best.
• COLOURS - Its actually the contrast between the colours that is the most important factor

USEFUL LINKS

RNIB Campaign for Good Website design. - This gives the general background about the campaign.

Hints for designing accessible web pages - This gives more explicit information on the EASY things to do to make your site accessible and expands more on the 4 tips I gave above.

- This image links you to the "BOBBY" web site validator which actually checks your sites web accessibility and points to possible mistakes and areas to check.

DISCLAIMER - I am trying quite hard to "BOBBY" my own site and 'practice what I preach'. If you spot any glaring errors then please let me know and I'll try and put them right. AT LEAST I'M TRYING !!