Is Your Website Designed to Provide Access for the Disabled?

Is your website accessible to people with disabilities? It seems like today, website owners are more concerned with mobile web design than they are with making their sites available to the millions of people around the world with disabilities. It makes sense from a business perspective to make your website as accessible as possible to everyone, but it is also becoming a legal matter and much for many businesses and organizations.

The World Wide Web is classified as a form of Information and Communications Technology, or ICT. Laws and policies regarding ICT accessibility that are already in existence are being considered in terms of the Internet. In addition, more and more legislation addressing ICT accessibility is being enacted around the world.

Although the Internet is for the most part unregulated, laws can apply to the Web as ICT. Many countries currently have government laws, policies, regulations and recommendations in place regarding Web accessibility. An abbreviated list of these countries includes: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Spain the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Americans with Disabilities Act and Internet Accessibility

In the United States, rulings regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) resulted in the determination that State as well as local governments and the business sector must provide "effective communication" during Internet communications.

A significant point of the ADA policy rulings is that communications in graphical format are almost impossible for people with visual disabilities to understand. Screenreaders cannot make sense of graphic images: text format is absolutely essential, including text for navigational tools, graphs, tables and charts.

You can find out more about the ADA and rulings regarding the Internet at the US Department of Justice (USDOJ) website.

Implementing Universal Design

Whether laws are governing your website today or not, it is in your best interest to make your site accessible to all Internet users - especially if it is a business website. How can you accomplish this? By implementing the elements of Universal Design on all of your web pages. Your entire website will then be available to the widest range of Internet users possible, regardless of the type of technology or equipment they use, disabilities, age, or level of education.

The following are some of the specific ways you can apply Universal Design principles to your website:

1. Provide text browser support

2. Present documents in text format rather than in frames or PDF

3. Avoid requiring visitors to download software to view information

4. Add "Alt" tags to your graphics so screenreaders can "read" images

5. Hyperlink all photos with descriptive text

6. Hyperlink video and audio clips with captioning

7. Provide email or voice/TTY phone number alternatives for on-line forms

8. Avoid relying on color to convey information

You can obtain more complete information about website accessibility guidelines from resources such as W3 online.

Depending on your skills, you may or may not need assistance redesigning or developing your next website for full accessibility. Whether you make changes to your website design yourself or rely on professional assistance, remember to evaluate the results.

There are many free evaluation tools available online that can help you test web pages on your site for accessibility. For a comprehensive evaluation that would ensure compliance with web accessibility laws, you will need to rely on the expertise of a knowledgeable professional as well as evaluation tools.

Additional Benefits of Web Accessibility

Whether you need to bring your website to full web accessibility standards to comply with legal requirements, or you're primarily interested in providing access to those with disabilities, you'll discover some surprising additional benefits.

A website with a flexible design is more accessible to people browsing the Web with limited technology, such as dial-up Internet connections or outdated computers. Your fully accessible website will also be available to those with temporary disabilities, such as people recovering from surgery or accidents. With the right equipment, even people with limited or no literacy skills will be able to browse your website.

Regardless of what type of website you have, focusing on web accessibility will benefit your visitors as well as your business in a variety of ways.

About the Author

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Article Source: Content for Reprint

Getting a website designed? Think Again! You might be wasting dollars on nothing, but an online book.

Internet technologies are evolving rapidly and every one is running to get a website. But just hold for a moment, you might be wasting dollars on nothing but just an on line book. A website represents a company that should be worthy to make a good impression over its visitors. Only an interactive designed website can help you to attract and retain your targeted customers

Key ingredients of an interactive website:

1 A website when conceptualized must make sure that it has all that it takes to get the visitors stick to & return to it.
Your Web site is your source of information over net, so the better the information you have presented on your site pertaining to your topic, the more traffic you are possible to generate. In other words, make sure that your website offers and displays the entire basis requirement needed by a visitor to stick and return to your site.

2. Constant Updating
To bring more traffic and returning visitor it is important to keep upgrading and updating your products and useful content of the website. Maintaining up-to-date and accurate content, specially the product information will allow your visitors to have the latest information and updates about the services or products you offer. This would help you & your website increase traffic manifolds.

However it is always recommended that if you require regular updates in your website it is better to have dynamic website through which you can easily add / delete or modify any information online without the need of any IT person.
Dynamic websites are the most effective and popular, because in this you have all the flexibility to change the content / pictures / price at the website. You can easily upload information of your own, preferably through password protected administrative interfaces which are empowered by dynamic websites. Hence continuous modifications or up-gradations can easily be done through a dynamic website.

3. Easy Navigation
Navigation of a website is a very important element to help your customers scroll through your website, specially the products/ services section.

An easy and simple navigation can make your visitor figure out how to get to the product order page, query page or any other relevant page of your website. In other words navigation is the one of key ingredients which must be strongly supported by a website.

4. Effective Product/Service Listing or Presentation
An effective Product or service listing page is another key factor for a web site to be interactive with the visitor. This page must contain the complete hierarchy of products you offer. The list must open up a dedicated page having the detailed description that might be useful for the customer.

5. Contact Details

Keeping company profile and up-to date contact details including physical address and e mail makes an authentic impression on visitors. If a visitor requires any specific information which is not specified on your website then they may contact you via this.

To conclude, there are a number of websites designed every day, but its success depends on how effectively and efficiently they are designed. If your website succeeded in presenting things what its visitors expect i.e. what you serve and what they need, then it would be a pleasurable experience for both.

About Author: Plasma Interactive - A Web Design and Development Company based in Dallas, Texas USA.

Plasma Interactive
Phone: (011) 972-387-7324
Fax: (011) 972-387-5298
5001 LBJ Freeway, Suite 700
Dallas, Texas - 75244, USA

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About the Author: Yasser at http://www.plasmainteractive.net/

How Well Is Your Website Designed to Sell?

by: Robert Kleine

Why do some websites sell better than others? Do you need a marketing degree to create a website? Does design have much impact on sales or is web copy the all important key to your websites success?

You may not realize this but many successful internet marketing businesses have found that design, or layout of a website should be a marketing decision based on research done by internet marketers, not designers. Some very basic websites actually sell much better than their "Flashy" counterparts.

This is in no way a negative reflection of the incredible talent that website designers have. You will clearly have a much more professional looking site when an expert applies his handiwork. However, it is very important to understand some of the key elements that smart marketers will make certain to appear (or NOT appear) on their highly profitable sites. If you are aware of these you may be able to select a designer who is knowledgeable in marketing as well as design.

Designers with a flair for color can make compelling choices that set a mood, but reading on a computer screen demands as much contrast as possible, otherwise the reader will have vision fatigue. You don't want to irritate your visitors in any way or they may leave, so be certain that the main body of your website copy is black writing on a white background, or as close to that ideal as possible.

Colors also look different on different monitors, so what looks cool and calm on one monitor may be bright and glaring on another. Make sure you check your color scheme on at least the most popular monitors. In most cases, simple works best.

Striking, bold graphics can be a real eye-catcher for visitors. Still, internet marketers are pretty much unanimous in stating that you should avoid flash graphics as much as possible. Again, they tend to tire visitors eyes, make the page load slowly, or create a distraction from the written copy. Even if they are initially impressed by the work it may subconsciously annoy them. Simplicity is again the best way to go.

The first 'fold' of your site is similar to opening a traditional paper letter. If you remove a letter from an envelope that is folded in three, you will obviously view the top 'fold' first.

This fold is what individuals will see without having to scroll down the page. It's extremely important that elements like descriptive headlines, your contact number, newsletter subscription form etc. all show in the first fold. Do NOT place banners here unless they are the main element of your business as you will be giving prime space to other websites and your customer (which you fought hard to get in the first place) will be gone just as quickly.

These are just some of the important elements you should be aware of when looking for someone to design your site.

About The Author

Robert Kleine is an author, copywriter and webmaster; Don't worry about designing your own websites. Check out his new site ResaleRightsTreasureChest.comhttp://www.resalerightstreasurechest.com where all the design and copy are done for you so all you have to do is sell.