Web Site Accessibility and Usability

Make sure every visitor can read your Web Site, even if they can't see it. 

There are visitors to your website who are visually impaired. They cannot see your awe inspiring flash introduction, they cannot appreciate your expensive photography and graphics and they will not be impressed by your clever use of javascript. Yet these visitors hold the future of your site in their hands, because these are the search engines.

Accessibility should be at the core of your site, not tacked on the end.

Too often these and their flesh and blood disabled counterparts are not considered when commissioning a website, after all the web is a visual medium, it's about graphics and style and imagery, not disability web site access issues, right? At Appropriate Solutions we see things differently, we like to view a website from the inside out, starting with content, it's organisation, presentation and accessibility.

Standards exist by which we can be measured. 

At Appropriate Solutions we build sites the hard way, we build sites that comply with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards. They also comply with PAS 78, a standard for disability access, as well as being cross browser compatible. This means they should look good in any of the current browsers (Internet Explorer 6, Firefox 1.5, Opera 9), and still  be accessible in older browsers.

Accessibility is not just for the impaired.

A general rule of thumb is that good accessibility will produce good usability, and as poor usability (the ability to achieve your goals easily on a web site) is the most often cited reason for leaving a web site, investment in all your visitors, sited and not will pay dividends.

Contact Appropriate Solutions now to find out what improving your accessibility and usability could do for your web site.