Week 5 - Web Accessibility

This week I won’t be blogging the usual things, I won’t talk about what language we have learnt or what implementation didn’t work in my program. This week’s lesson was about web site accessibility. We had a presentation with the purpose to understand and keep in mind that there are people that have certain problems when it comes to using a computer or reading something of a website. This is a huge issue and people don’t know about the large number of people that there is that can’t make proper use of certain websites and features.

Web Accessibility is split into four major parts, visual, mobility, auditory and cognitive. These are split from children to youngsters up to elderly who all make use of the internet. Certain sites have certain colors that certain people with visual problems won’t see it properly or else there is a fast icon going on and they won’t be able to click it, also some sites which have some sound going on and off automatically and the stop button is nowhere to be found can affect people with certain disabilities.  

Chosen colors don't pass

Groups of people are forming to try and show the awareness for these types of people and make sure that websites are accessible by everyone. WAI is one of these groups this stands for Web. Accessibility Initiative, with their help and documents which they provide one can develop a site that could be viewed by everyone even those people that have some disability. In 1994 the disability discrimination act was formed in 1994 and revamped in 2004 while the equality act was formed in 2010. Services on the website must be equal to people with disability.



As technologies continue to evolve developers are making more use of certain tools that are being released to make it easier for developers to create a more accessible site. An example of this tool is to check the colors of the sites and make your site look as how it would look like for people with visual problems. There are also different type of sites that offer services to check your color contrast if it passes the WAI standards. I took a shot at it and tried some contrast. A list of useful tools can be found on http://www.w3.org/WAI/RC/tools/complete


Conclusion
Trying to make everyone feel that they have the same equality is of utmost importance you can do this by following certain guidelines. I think that their isn't enough knowledge about Web Accessibility and students should give more taught about accessibility so that everyone would be able to roam the internet and use all sites. Thanks to this lesson I would now keep in mind certain things when creating a site so everyone can use and enjoy the site.

Chosen colors pass