Geordie Geek: Web design, pc problems, accessibility and tuition
Accessibility Services and the Disability Discrimination Act
Part III of the Act, Discrimination in Other Areas describes "discrimination in relation to goods, facilities and services" including company web sites. You are therefore required by law to ensure your web site is fully accessible to people with disabilities. Under the act you must make "reasonable efforts" to improve the accessibility of your site.
Apart from the DDA making your site unlawful if it is not accessible, your business could be losing £1000's due to your existing site excluding potential customers!
There are around 2 million people in the UK with severe sight problems and around 8.5 million people with a disability that could prevent them accessing your products / services. The disabled community alone in the UK is estimated to possess a spending power of £33 billion.
How can I help?
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If you have an existing web site:
Geordie Geek can offer you an accessibility audit which will highlight problem areas and tell you how to make your site more accessible. If the existing sites structure and style needs a complete overhaul in order to comply with the DDA and to be considered usable then Geordie Geek can give you a quotation on the costs involved in the redesign of the site.
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If you do not have a web site at present:
Geordie Geek can sit down with you and plan your new site to meet all your needs. Of course as the new site will be a Geordie Geek site it will be accessible from day one.
All Geordie Geek's web sites are made as accessible as possible (based on the costs involved and content) using the latest guidelines given by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and with respect to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA).
All sites that are designed by the Geordie Geek are coded and validated in XHTML (strict) the future-proof web standard, and utilise Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to control the layout of pages.
Have a look around this site and place your mouse over any link or image - you will see that there is always an alternative and meaningful textual description. With over 2 million people in the UK with visual impairments these text alternative descriptions are vital when using access technology like screen readers that speak the pages content via a speech synthesizer.
Also if you click on the XHTML 1.0 Strict and Valid CSS links at the bottom of each page of this site you can check that this site is fully standards compliant!
Want to find out more information? Speak to the Geek!
Get in touch via the contact details below and we can arrange a time to discuss any accessibility issues you may have.