Would Helen Keller be able to use your Web site?
That’s the question you might want to ask if you want to keep up with the latest government directive.
“It may be a regulation or statute that requires federal government Web sites to be accessible,” says Jeffrey A. Stern, a trial attorney with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “There are actually some very strict requirements as to what that means.”
Web pages may need voice files to make them accessible to the blind. On the flip side, if you have an audio file, you might need to make it available through text if the visitor is deaf. Stern also suggests business owners address questions of lower-speed modem access, which may be inconsistent with lots of graphics, and Java script and more sophisticated Web technologies.
Right now, the issue only concerns sites run by the federal government, but can universal implementation be far behind?
“There are a variety of techniques that have to be used to validate a Web home page to determine its accessibility level,” Stern says. “That, too, needs to be carefully thought through to make sure what you’re thinking is a very easy-access Web page is truly accessible to those whose abilities are different than the norm.”
There are a variety of Web sites that have applications, tools and checking procedures that can verify home pages. One place to start is www.disability.gov. Other sites offer validation services, where you fill in the address of the Web page and the application launches itself on that page and tells you whether it and its content comply with different standards.
“There are lots of resources out there to assist people in designing their pages to be accessible.”
Daniel G. Jacobs
