ptg16476052What Is Accessibility? 61122
n Professional researchers and historians—This type of site probably requires
pages that are heavier in text content than multimedia.Not all websites are focused on education. For instance, a site
dedicated to college student parties might need to be all videos
and pictures and no citations of any kind.NOTEIt’s not always possible to define user groups for your website, so you’ll need to start
with your own preferences. Survey other sites that include similar content. As you browse
through them, ask yourself what you hope to see there. Is the information displayed well?
Is there enough help on the site? Does the site have too much or too little multimedia? If
you can get a friend or two to do the survey along with you, it helps you get additional
feedback before you start your own site. Take notes and incorporate those ideas into your
own web pages.
After you design some initial pages, ask your friends, family members, and associates to
browse through your site and pick it apart. Even better is if you can find a few people in
your target market to check out your beta site. Keep in mind that when you ask others for
constructive criticism, you might hear some things that you don’t want to hear. However,
this process is important because you’ll often get many new ideas on how to improve
your site even more.
What Is Accessibility?
Accessibility is basically the effort to make websites as usable as possible for people with
disabilities. This involves the creation of software and hardware that enables people with
various disabilities to use computers and the Web. It also means addressing accessibil-
ity concerns in the design of HTML as a markup language and efforts on the part of web
designers to incorporate accessibility into their websites. When a person with impaired
vision uses a screen reader to visit a website, there are things the site’s author can do to
make that experience as rich and fulfilling as possible given the user’s disability.
The good news is, because you already design with a Mobile First mindset, making your
inclusive site accessible will be a breeze.
Common Myths Regarding Accessibility
Historically, there has been some resistance among web designers toward building web-
sites in an accessible manner. This resistance has arisen not due to a want to discriminate
against people who might benefit from accessible design, but rather from a fear that