Accessible Web Design

The legal point of view

Since 1999, it has been a legal requirement that every website in the UK must take reasonable steps to ensure that the site is available to everyone regardless of their ability or disability.

Additionally, it is unlawful in the UK to provide a service or product to the public while preventing a disabled person from having access to that same service or product (Disability Discrimination Act 1995). These pieces of legislation demand that accessibility is a major consideration for your website.

Providing good customer experience

If you ignore accessibility issues, studies show that you could be alienating up to twenty percent of your potential market. Flickering text, poorly chosen colours, and lack of keyboard shortcuts can all contribute to a bad customer experience for many people. Bad news travels faster than good news.

At Indiciumweb, we take your brand reputation seriously, and as a consequence, the work we undertake is done with the utmost consideration for how it may affect your customers' experience of your business.

Accessibility

We always strive to deliver fully accessible web applications. However, we also understand that it is your budget which will determine this perfection. For example, if you want us to achieve WAI AA compliance, we will ensure we achieve at least that, and only if the budget allows, will we spend additional time achieving AAA perfection. Understand though, that A compliance does not quite fulfil all your legal requirements.

Code validity

It is important to have valid HTML in order that all browsers, site readers and search engine spiders will fully understand how your site is structured. An additional benefit of valid HTML is that it makes future bolt-on functionality and bug fixing much more straight forward, saving you money in the long term. All of the HTML coding by Indiciumweb is valid.

CSS validity

Invalid (or ambiguous) CSS is the most common cause of websites behaving differently in different browsers. We will always produce valid CSS to ensure that your site is compatible with as many different browsers as possible.