Web accessibility compliance means making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. A website that has been designed, developed and edited to web accessibility standards will result in any user on any web browser enjoying equal access to information and functionality. It seems all of us benefit from a web designed, easy to use website and it has SEO benefits as people describe Google as blind.
Alterian Content Manager enables you to create Accessible websites. Built-in support for checking webpage accessibility before it goes live allows you to get the most out of each website visit. You can select from a number of levels varying from single A to triple A and various standards including WCAG 2.0.
57 percent of current working-age computer users may benefit from accessible technology because of mild to severe vision, hearing, dexterity, speech and cognitive difficulties and impairments. As the U.S. population continues to age, the number of people who experience these impairments will increase, and more people will likely turn to accessible technology to mitigate the effects of their changing physical abilities. Source: Microsoft Research in 2004
Key legislation and Regulation
- Section 508 is part of the US Rehabilitation Act which required Federal Agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 sets out a list of checkpoints that need to be met for a website to be accessible. This is much like the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 1.0.
- PAS 78: Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible websites is a Publicly Available Specification published on March 8, 2006 by the British Standards Institution (BSI) in collaboration with the Disability Rights Commission (DRC). It provides guidance to organizations in how to go about commissioning an accessible website from a design agency. It describes what is expected from websites to comply with the UK Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), making websites accessible to and usable by disabled people
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are part of a series of Web accessibility guidelines published by the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative. They consist of a set of guidelines on making content accessible, primarily for disabled users, but also for all user agents, including highly limited devices, such as mobile phones.
In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities. Source: IT Accessibility & Workforce Division (ITAW), Office of Government wide Policy, U.S. General Services Administration
Alterian Content Manager
Successful content management demands that you delegate publishing capabilities to non-technical users, but this threatens the ability for sites to remain compliant and up to date with key legislation and regulation. What may be a compliant site at launch could end up breaking the rules as new content is added and updated.
Most accessibility checking tools inspect content after it has gone live – which is too late. What’s more, the technical language of the associated reporting tools increases the margin for error and delay – and requires technical expertise to implement recommended changes. Our checks happen as the content is created and saved, users can't publish items until issues are fixed and the errors are displayed in with simple messages and issues are highlighted in-context, with the steps required to fix them.