With revolutionary changes in the ICT arena browsing the web has changed a lot during past years. It has gone far beyond the use by people using personal computers. The Web now-a-day can be accessed by:
• People - of different age and abilities
• Software – different type of user agents like search engines, browsers with varying features, capabilities and support etc.
• Machines – PCs, Laptops, Mobile Phones, PDAs and other hand held devices
By Universal Accessibility I mean to make a website useful for all, irrespective of technology, platforms, devices or disabilities of any kind - to accommodate most of people, softwares and machines.
A non-accessible website could trouble an individual in many ways. For example, images that do not have alt text cannot be interpreted by screen readers or cannot be understood by an individual using slow speed internet if the images fail to download. A video that is not described in text or audio is inaccessible to the visually challenged. Another example could be forms that cannot be tabbed through in a logical sequence or form fields that have not been label tagged properly. Similarly, Websites that lack keyboard access cannot be used by the visually challenged and the list could go on.
As the variety of web access methods increases, adjusting or duplicating websites to satisfy all needs will become increasingly difficult. Following standards is a major step towards solving this problem. Making your sites standards-compliant will help ensure not only that traditional browsers, old and new, will all be able to present sites properly, but also that they will work with unusual browsers and media.
Complying with web standards can help accommodate the varied user group. It will give your web pages greater visibility in web searches. The structural information present in compliant documents makes it easy for search engines to access and evaluate the information in those documents, and they get indexed more accurately. Further, it becomes easier for server-side as well as client-side software to understand the structure of your document.
From a developer’s perspect, writing compliant code gives you an opportunity of validating your page with validation services. Validators process your documents and present you with a list of errors. This makes finding and correcting errors a lot easier, and can save you a lot of time.
Web developers, Browser development companies and Companies developing publishing tools and Content Management Systems are major stake holders who can contribute in greater way to help make a more standard and inclusive Web.
