Throughout this pandemic, weve all experienced a dramatic shift in our relationships with our devices.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
A vast majority of websites still remain closed off to people with disabilities.
According to the study:
What does this mean in practice?
Finding random blank buttons that lead to… who knows where.
Want a summer sale discount on an image 3?
Too bad you cant read pop-ups.
So why are there still so many inaccessible websites out there?
Yan Kotliarsky, VP of Marketing at accessiBe, added:
Its new territory.
Companies wanting to work towards accessibility should adopt these guidelines as their standard, Minh explained.
(Check out more info about these guidelines developed by theWorld Wide Web Consortium, or W3C.)
This contrasts significantly with how the EU has approached web accessibility.
This difference could perhaps be a reason why were seeing so many more lawsuits coming out of the US.
The right legislation, supported by technical standards, is definitely a driver for accessibility.
Heres a brief breakdown of the EUs accessibility directives with links to further information:
3.
If even Queen B has been sued, so could your SMB.
Heres what to do.
How to ensure your website is accessible
1.
But as Minh pointed out, beware of web development services simply paying lip service to accessibility in contracts.
Having accessibility as part of the curricula for ICT professionals is vital.
But what if you already have an existing website?
How do you know if it meets these standards?
Here is alistprovided by W3C with a few manual checks it’s possible for you to do right now.
These two factors account for around 80% of the web accessibility guidelines.
Does it suddenly leave you exposed yet again?
A website should be constantly monitored.
This represents a loss of 17.1 billion in potential revenue.
And only 8% of these shoppers contacted the site owner to let them know about this barrier.
Alejandro agreed and added: Reach out to users and involve them in the design process too.
With the COVID pandemic, weve seen digital services become even more important to our livelihoods than ever.
We need to remember that people with disabilities can do anything anyone else can.
In the online world, their limitation doesnt limit them, but inaccessible sites do.
