What Does it mean?

Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. Web accessibility also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging.

Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the Web, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities. For example, a key principle of Web accessibility is designing Websites that are flexible to meet different user needs, preferences, and situations.

Accessible Websites also increases usability which ultimately benefits all users. Additionally, Accessibility has important, beneficial implications for Search Engine Optimization; many of the same features which make a Website truly accessible also increase the visibility of a Website to search engine´s robots, improving their search ranking in popular search engines, especially Google.

Making a Website accessible can be simple or complex, depending on many factors such as the type of content, the size and complexity of the site, and the development tools and environment. Many accessibility features are easily implemented if they are planned from the beginning of Website development or redesign. Fixing inaccessible Web sites can require significant effort, especially sites that were not originally coded properly with standard XHTML markup.

Therefore it is important to develop Websites to be compliant with Section 508, and the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 standards.

There are several online Accessibility tools that check to find out how the web page measures up against common accessibility guidelines, including Etre, and Cynthia Says.