"Curb Cuts" for Your Website?

In the decade that the Americans with Disabilities Act has been in operation, the American landscape has been remade. You see the effects on new and renovated buildings--a ramp here, an elevator there, a "curb cut" here. But what about cyberspace? Just as your bank ensures that its physical facilities are accessible to all customers, it should do the same for its "virtual" office--its presence on the web. You can open up your site to a much larger market with just a few modifications to the Hypertext Markup Language. (HTML is the computer code read by web browsers.) ADA-friendly website modifications will not only increase market appeal, but also ensure compliance with both the letter and the spirit of the 1990 disability act. These modifications will increase the ability for the disabled to navigate your site and understand your content. And they will increase the appeal to anyone who wants to surf your site with graphics turned off (which many do to enhance speed). Making such changes will make your site load faster and could help prepare your bank for tomorrow's wireless web viewers. Plus, it is lust the right thing to do. If there's any doubt in your mind that this is the way to go, consider that earlier this year a 1998 amendment to federal law began requiring the federal government's own websites to provide easy access by the disabled. (Technically, the law only requires that from June 21, 2001, on, every purchase by a federal agency of an electronic communications service or device comply with the law, but vagueness in the law has led many agencies to opt to redesign their sites to be sure they comply.) While some agencies are still figuring things out--the Access Board, the agency responsible for many aspects of the disability act, published implementing rules last December and gave agencies six months to comply-- this is clearly an indication of the way Washington's mindset is heading. This will likely strongly influence the vendor community. And the Justice Department has opined that websites do fall within the purview of ADA. Usability and accessibility If the web still looked as it did when Tim Berners-Lee invented it, accessibility wouldn't be an issue. The web started as plain text, with no graphics. Screen readers, now used by an estimated 400,000 persons in the U.S., could easily recite such content for those with a sight disability. But fancy graphics are what made the web so commercially viable--and sometimes so unfriendly to the disabled. Audio files ("You've got mail!" is the classic) create the need for transcripts for those with hearing difficulties, while the blind need voiced descriptions of written content. The graphical nature of the web causes those with a sight disability--ranging from low vision to complete blindness--the most problems since there is more text on a typical website than sound. However, there is a third category of disability that goes beyond the senses--physical disabilities and motor impairments. When a person is using a mouth stick or other device to operate their computer, ease of navigation can be crucial. When your website was designed and constructed, it should have been reviewed for "usability" -- how users will logically move from one part of your site, such as the home page, to the page offering the product that they want. Poor usability standards translate into a difficult user experience and less use of your site. Now let's carry the concept of usability over to " accessibility." Making a site "accessible" means that it can be navigated and understood by both those who cannot distinguish between some color differences --or even see at all--and by someone who cannot hear the audio portion of a site's multimedia file. Several factors can cause accessibility problems; each is correctable or can be provided in an alternate form: images; colors; audio files; frames; tables; forms; navigation; and Java scripts. …