Web Design Packages (UK)

Accessibility of websites has been a topic close to our hearts for too many years now. Making sites accessible to all (even if they have a disability or poor/low-tech’ web /PC equipment) is still NOT in the mainstream enough. This is despite effecting 10/20% of web users AND the US, UK and Euro laws that make it a legal requirement !!! Your site is probably breaking the law…

The ‘accessibility’ word is just not getting out there quick enough. The basic principles of making a website accessible are fairly easy to ‘sell’ I think but companies ignore it on the whole because it can clash with their ‘brand’ or curtail the bells and whistles the CEO loves.

With modern browsers such as IE7 and Firefox it is easier than ever to make a site ‘disable-friendly’ or accessible to many users of ‘speech’ equipment, non-mouse users and vision-impaired people. There is no excuse any more !!

There are many organisations world-wide that are actively promoting accessible web design, including RNIB (The Royal National Institute for the Blind) and GAWDS (the Guild of Accessible Web Designers) . We are proud members of GAWDs – www.gawds.org – a world-wide group of like-minded web designers and IT people looking to make the Internet an easy place to be for all levels of user.

It’s clear that most sites/companies don’t bother (or even know how) to make their sites accessible. It generally needs the skills of an accessible web designer to advise on the web design itself. The site owner may find he/she has to make some compromises on the features, layout or look of their prized website but this is off-set by having a sensible and easy-to-use website that will render in many devices other than just Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. It is also better placed for indexing in the popular Search Engines I’m told.

Yep, it is getting better, and the new web design tools we use are making it easier to produce error-free code but the laws are 6/8 years old now and I would guestimate 95% of websites are still not compliant. It’s just not good enough is it?

Of course the DIYers and ‘web-wizard-no-coding-required’ brigade usually ignore any best practices so that doesn’t help.

… so next time you rebuild or commission a website make sure you make it accessible – it shouldn’t cost any more and you’d be helping a lot of disadvantaged people. So get a REAL WEB DESIGNER with experience.

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