Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), founded in 1990, has shaped how we all operate. The law states that persons with physical or mental disabilities can not be denied to participate in and benefit from public housing. We used the wheelchair ramps or elevators available for multi-storey buildings, Braille, provided that the banks' ATMs, on television captioning capabilities, and parking spaces with certain disabilities.
requirements of the ADA ensures equal opportunity for persons with disabilities in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation and requires the establishment of TDD / telephone relay services. All businesses must comply with the ADA. It is a federal offense to refuse to comply.
So why do companies have overlooked the needs of their customers' web?
Over 15% of all U.S. population has some disability, such as blindness, partial vision, color blindness, deafness, and those who have limited use of limbs, and can only use the keyboard or by voice commands. To navigate the web, Disabled surfer will be assistive technologies such as screen reader software utility that reads web pages audibly. However, websites must follow the programming and design guidelines to be read by screen readers, a few companies have ever followed accessibility guidelines, let alone heard of them.
In 1997, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international collective of technology development (specifications, guidelines, software and tools) to lead Web to its full potential, established Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The initiative was set up to develop and improve the international standard for design and programming guidelines to increase accessibility.
in 1998, Congress amended the federal Rehabilitation Act requires U.S. agencies, government contractors and others receiving federal money to the electronics and IT services accessible to persons with disabilities and the development of these services with one p.m. these guidelines are known as "Section 508". Because Section 508, all U.S. government-related web sites are currently available Web.
In October 2002, Southwest Airlines has been sued by Access Now, Florida not-for-Profit Corporation and advocate for the disabled community, and Robert Gumson, a blind individual who had difficulty using Southwest's Web site to make travel plans. Access Now alleged that Southwest's site was not accessible to persons with disabilities, and that place is not programmed with an alternative text that will work with screen readers, so Gumson denied full access. Although the judge ruled in favor of Southwest Airlines, it's not a good source of positive publicity for the company.
as well as web designers and developers to learn more about the importance and how to implement web accessibility, they can help companies to better educate and prepare their clients' Web sites. goal is to enable any Web site accessible is self-driven initiative, while additional legislation is designed to implement accessibility standards across all business sites created in the U.S.
an advantage for increasing accessibility to your site are many. Not only will you increase your range of disabled users with assistive technology, but customers experience faster download times, bandwidth savings, higher search engine ranking, the easier site management and cross-browser compatibility.
affordable web site also becomes a "forward compatible", which means the readership increases programming with modern technologies such as PDAs, mobile devices, web TV and future versions of Web browsers that are scheduled to follow the standards available in translation code. There will be a need to reprogram your site every few years to adapt to new browsers.
the greatest benefit for increasing Web accessibility that allows your website to reach everyone, not just disabled users.
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