A client of a fellow web designer recently received a letter citing that their website was not accessible – although the designer had approached the importance of accessibility with the client before building the website. The client had to defend themselves in court and possibly pay fines. This is not unusual and is happening more and more lately.
Website accessibility means that a website is properly designed and coded to allow all people including those with disabilities to access the website.
Accessibility is not a destination, it is a journey because there is no way to make a website 100% accessible and it will always be open to a certain amount of interpretation. Just like for SEO and performance, websites should be optimized for accessibility on an ongoing basis and is the responsibility of the business/website owner.
A majority of web designers do not take accessibility into account. WebAIM, a non-profit organization and one of the leading providers of web accessibility expertise internationally, detected WCAG 2 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) failures in 97% of home pages on the top 1,000,000 web sites it tested in 2021.
Because this is important and starting to become a legal issue for big and small business, I am studying accessibility in order to better help my clients.
Is your website accessible?
