Why accessibility and usability go hand in hand

Web accessibility refers to the practice of making pages on the Internet accessible to all users, especially those with disabilities. By focusing upon accessibility this can not only aid your disabled users, but all your site users.

Accessibility's main aim is to improve the access to the net for people with disabilities. But why bother? It is a lot of hard work for only a small gain right? Wrong. You have a legal, personal and financial responsibility to focus upon accessibility.

Why your site should be accessible

According to the Disability Discrimination Act you must not discriminate against any part of the population by failing to provide a service available to others. And why would you? Approximately 14% of the population are registered disabled (that is a large proportion of the population to ignore). Accessibility can widen your customer base to include these users, increasing your site revenue. There is also the moral argument; the internet could one of the greatest enabling systems for disabled people ever created. It should be available to everyone; no obstruction should be placed in anyone's way.

Accessibility is very closely related to usability. The aim behind usability is to create designs (systems) that are easy to use, to aid users in fulfilling target actions within a system simply and easily, removing any obstructions from a process.

Due to this close relationship between the two, by improving accessibility, usability often also gets improved. This is because there is a major overlap between the two approaches. Both have the same aim - to aid users in performing actions on your site. The distinction is that while usability has this aim for all the users of a system, accessibility focuses upon the users who usually struggle with the systems the most (particularly people with disabilities).

If you have yet to be convinced over the benefits of accessibility remember that the target market of a system is usually a broad range of people (this is especially true for websites). You must be aware that no matter how specific you attempt to become in defining your target users, there will be others wanting and attempting to use your site - a young boy may buy a model plane from your site, but so could the young boy's grandparents.

While you may believe only a limited number of your users are disabled, nearly everyone suffers some form of restriction in their capabilities. By designing websites that are able to cater for people at the most restricting end of the capabilities spectrum, you can also aid your other users. For example, if you use complex language to convey information on your site users with lower literary skills will be unable to use your site, and even the people who are able to read and understand the information will be forced to read slower. If the site used a simpler language, not only would the lower literacy users be able to understand and use the site but the higher literacy users could absorb the information faster.

All these different people arrive onto your site aiming to spend their money, but will have all kinds of limitations in their abilities. Some will have a lower literary skill, others will suffer some kind of visual impairment, and others will have reduced dexterity. These users place different requirements onto your site - it is your job to try and accommodate them as best you can.

How to make your site accessible

There are several changes you can make to your site to improve it's usability - first check how your site copes with some assistive technologies. Try using a screen reader, increase the size of the browser text, or use a screen magnifier. Problems in the site will soon become apparent.

There are also some simple changes you can employ and some easy questions to ask to improve your site's accessibility:

• Use more descriptive links - Do not rely on users interpreting the link destination from icons or one or two words.
• Remove/Replace any text embedded within pictures, screen readers will not be able to pick these up.
• Ensure the structure used to present information is clear and easy to understand.
• Look at the language used in the site - Is it overly complicated? Could anything be stated more simply? Does the site use slang or jargon? Is there anything unclear?
• Examine the navigation used to travel through your site (both its structure and the actual processes required). Is it easy to use? Is it apparent what is required? If I had reduced dexterity, or limited vision - could I still use it?
• Remove un-required screen distractions (such as redundant pictures).
• Provide transcripts of any audio used on the site - this will aid deaf users.

Whilst designing for your target market remember that this will contain users with restricted abilities (not just disabled users). In order to reach out to your entire customer base you must pay attention to your site's accessibility - if you do so everyone will appreciate it and don't worry, it pays for itself many times over.

Article is printed in catalogue e-business (July 2007)