Is Your
IR Website Accessible?
By: Dominic Jones
Related: Five
Usability Taboos for IR Websites
ACCESSIBLE websites work for people of all capabilities.
They work with different browsers, connection speeds,
operating systems, screen sizes, and they accommodate
the physiological limitations of a wide range of
users.
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Making your IR website accessible
for disabled users will improve its
usability for non-disabled users as
well.
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In its broadest sense, an accessible website
is a good website because anyone with a computer
and an Internet connection can use it. However,
accessibility on the Web is still very much a
pipe dream. Although the Internet was conceived
as a fully accessible medium, poor web design
has resulted in many websites being inaccessible
and unusable for large segments of the online
audience.
The audience groups most affected by inaccessible
websites are people with disabilities, including
those with various levels of impairment of sight,
hearing, mobility and cognitive ability. As populations
in developed countries continue
to age, the number of people with some form
of disability will continue to grow, making Web
accessibility a critical issue for all kinds of
websites, from e-commerce sites, to employee Intranets,
to your IR website.
In several countries, companies have no choice
but to put Web accessibility high up on their
agendas. Disability rights laws have made Web
accessibility a question of discrimination, which
in turn is making companies pay more attention
to the ease of use of their websites for disabled
users.
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