The content on the web keeps impressing us. During the two decades of its existence, the web has transformed from a clumsy novelty into a versatile social phenomenon taking on the whole globe.

We’ve seen the skills of web developers grow and their clients becoming more and more tech savvy resulting in innovative and good looking websites.

But not for all. Accessibility guidelines are still considered as a drag by too many web developers leaving a huge number of web users excluded.

We talked to Gary Robson, Technical Director at Industrial Strength, a North East web design company, to find out what’s so off-putting about accessibility.

A by-product, not an addition

The first place where people tend to go wrong with accessibility, Gary said, is thinking it as separate addition.

“For a long time accessibility has been seen as an optional feature and because of this, it would generally have a cost implication that was difficult to justify for many clients”, he said.

“This should no longer be an issue, with the increased capability of all the browsers. Building an accessible site to a reasonable standard, should generally be seen as a by-product of building a site well.”

For Gary, a realisation of the importance of issue came with a visit to the accessibility lab at the Department of Disability Services at Cardiff University.

“It was quite an eye-opener to see what they have to put up with day-to-day purely because web developers and designers have historically seen catering for them as too much work!”, he said.

“The main problem now is that that attitude hasn’t changed across the whole industry, and many still use accessibility as a tool to upsell.”

Not just about ticking the boxes

Gary admits that there are some issues with the W3C’s accessibility guidelines which have been criticised as being too complex and vague.

“It’s too easy to game the system, tick all the boxes, and still end up with an inaccessible site”, he said.

“I’m not sure whether this is an issue with the WAI [Web Accessibility Initiative] guidelines as such, but the complexity and the sheer number of grey areas don’t make for a level playing field when you have those who just want to tick the boxes, and those who actually want to build an accessible site.”

According to Gary, the key thing to keep in mind is that good accessibility can’t be achieved in isolation.

“Don’t think accessibility as an afterthought”, he said.

“It should be considered as part of the bigger picture – site content requirements, SEO, accessibility and design can and should bleed into each other when making specs for a website.”

Buy accessibility, get SEO for free

For those in search of extra motivation to invest in accessibility, Gary suggests to think of it as a form of search engine optimisation.

“A good accessibility standard and a good SEO aware site overlap in so many areas that its almost buy one get one free!”

“To excel in either discipline requires some dedicated work, but an accessible site that assistive technology, such as screenreaders, can understand is also a site that Google can understand.”

And finally, for all the designers who see accessibility as something that ruins their fancy plans; can accessibility and innovative design work together?

“Yes. For a long time there was a difficult balancing act between design and accessibility but this, to a big degree, has been overcome by a mixture of technology and common sense. An accessible site is no longer shorthand for ugly/minimalistic.”

Case study

Accessibility on agenda for BBC and Google

Web developer Gary Robson says that the BBC provides a great example of what can be achieved when the owner of the site views accessibility as a basic requirement, not an inconvenient optional extra. Read more…