Frequently Asked Questions

Will making my site accessible mean making it bland and boring?

No, almost all web technology can be made accessible with no impact on the visual appearance.

Is there a government certification or logo which will identify my site as officially 508 Compliant?

No, at this time no official government certification program exists for products and services to state they are Section 508 Compliant. There are no accepted government logos to claim Section 508 Compliance.

How do I test for accessibility?

There are various ways to test for accessibility each has its strengths and limitations.

• Web accessibility evaluation tools are a handy and immediate method to check for accessibility. These tools have limitations analogous to the spell check function in a word processing program and ultimately human evaluation is necessary. Evaluation tools excel in checking for alt tags and label elements. An automated review of a large quantity of pages can be checked and monitored with these tools, a task which would be enormously time consuming if done by hand.

• Knowledgeable experts are necessary for much of accessibility testing. Judgment is a key element in designing for accessibility and no algorithm can replace human judgment.

• Because of the variety of disabilities the ultimate test is with the end user. It is their experience we are trying to perfect. Screen readers and the various assistive devices as well as disabilities vary greatly and to create accessible web sites is not about the lowest common denominator but creating a flexibility in the design to accommodate the greatest number of viewers. There is no way to create a website that is completely guaranteed to be accessible to all individuals. Different limitations require different adjustments.

I doubt any of my customers are blind, why should I be concerned with accessibility?

Accessibility is not just about blindness or any particular disability. Accessibility is about access. Access to the information on the internet despite visual impairment, hearing impairment, motor skills, or cognitive impairment. Creating accessible websites also increases accessibility for mobile devices, dial up connections, and older browsers. Accessibility can improve search engine ranking, assist spidering, and lessen maintenance requirements because the demands of accessibility require cleaner code and an architecturally stronger site.

Designing with accessibility in mind creates a flexibility which benefits those with and without disabilities. For example a website designed to be “device independent” will not require a mouse to navigate throughout the site. This will carry over to benefit those who use keyboard shortcuts, those who can’t use a mouse due to repetitive stress injuries, those accessing a site with mobile phones or simply using their laptops without a mouse.

My business isn’t geared towards disabled people, does it really matter if I am accessible or not?

Before you disregard accessible websites as something only needed for niche markets or to satisfy government regulations lets look at some numbers.

• There are more than 600 million people with physical or sensory limitations worldwide – making this demographic the fastest growing minority group.
  
  
• Here in the U.S., there are approximately 58 million people with disabilities; that affects 1 in every 3 households.
  
  
• Forrester Research indicates that 101.4 million working-age adults ranging from 18 – 64 years are very likely to benefit from using accessible technology due to difficulties and impairments that may impact computer use.

There are also those who may not consider themselves as having a disability but who benefit from assistive technology. When designed for accessibility your site will be friendlier and easier to use.

If we create a text only version of our website should that cover any accessibility issues?

Text only versions of websites are generally not an acceptable substitute for creating an accessible website. The text version is often not kept up to date and rarely are they truly equivalent.