.: Trenton Moss Profile and Articles
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1). The Secret Benefit Of Search Engine Optimisation: Increased UsabilityA higher search ranking is what many website owners dream of. What they don't realise is that by optimising their site for the search engines, if done correctly, they can also optimise it for their site visitors.
Ultimately this means more people finding your website and increased sales and lead generation. But are search engine optimisation and usability.
2). Using the Web Accessibility Toolbar
Testing a website for accessibility can be a time-consuming and laborious process. The free Web Accessibility Toolbar can do most of the hard work for you though and is an indispensable tool for anyone interested in accessibility.
The toolbar is not an automated testing tool so does require manual work from you. It's therefore able to avoid the many problems with automated accessibility testing tools.
3). Improving usability for screen reader users
Simply ensuring your website is accessible to screen reader users is unfortunately not enough to ensure these users can find what they're looking for in a reasonably quick and efficient manner. Even if your site is accessible to screen reader users, its usability could be so incredibly poor that they needn't have bothered coming to your site.
Fortunately, there are plenty of simple-to-implement guidelines you can follow, which not only drastically improve usability for screen reader users, but for all web users:
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4). Tell me what your website does!
You know exactly what your organisation does and what your website offers its users. This information has probably become second nature to you, but first-time visitors to your site won't know this. As such, make sure you don't forget to tell them what you do.
As soon as new site visitors arrive at your website the first thing they need to know, before anything else, is what you do.
5). Writing Effective ALT Text For Images
Anyone who knows anything about web accessibility knows that images need alternative, or ALT, text assigned to them. This is because screen readers can't understand images, but rather read aloud the alternative text assigned to them. In Internet Explorer we can see this ALT text, simply by mousing over the image and looking at the yellow tooltip that appears.
6). Separate text-only version? No thanks!
In an attempt to make their sites accessible to all, more and more websites are now offering text-only versions of their sites. With the huge number of inaccessible websites out there, any attempt to make a website accessible to one and all is highly commendable.
But is text-only the way forward? The W3C have this to say about alternative accessible sites:
And if all else fails.
7). The problem with automated accessibility testing tools
An automated accessibility tool is a piece of software which can test a web page, or even an entire website, for accessibility. Automated accessibility tools are useful because they can save you a huge amount of time. Don't want to check images for alt text on each and every page on your website? Run the site through an automated tester and it'll do it all for you!
Automated accessibility testing tools have been around for a long time and have historically been a useful way of checking websites for accessibility.
8). Benefits Of An Accessible Website: Part 1 - Increase In Reach
The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) states that service providers must not discriminate against disabled people. A website is regarded as a service and therefore falls under this law, and as such must be made accessible to everyone.
Some organisations are making accessibility improvements to their websites, but many are seemingly not making the accessibility adjustments.
9). Web accessibility for screen magnifier users
The needs of screen magnifier users are overlooked when implementing web accessibility on to a website. Screen magnifiers are used by partially sighted web users to increase the size of on-screen elements. Some users will magnify the screen so that only three to four words are able to appear on the screen at any one time. You can try using a screen magnifier yourself by downloading the Zoomtext screen magnifier from http://www.
10). The Secret Benefit Of Accessibility Part 2: A Higher Search Engine Ranking
An additional benefit of website accessibility is an improved performance in search engines. The more accessible it is to search engines, the more accurately they can predict what the site's about, and the higher your site will appear in the rankings.
Not all of the accessibility guidelines will help with your search engine rankings, but there are certainly numerous areas of overlap:
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11). The Secret Benefit Of Accessibility Part 1: Increased Usability
Web accessibility has so many benefits that I really do wonder why such a large number of websites have such diabolically bad accessibility. One of the main benefits is increased usability, which according to usability guru, Jakob Nielson, can increase the sales/conversion rate of a website by 100% and traffic by 150%.
At which point you must surely be asking, "So if I make my website accessible its usability will increase and I'll make more money out of it?".
12). Website content & usability
Writing for the web is totally different to writing for printed matter. We tend to scan content on the web hunting for the information we're after, as opposed to reading word-for-word. As a result of this, there are certain guidelines you should be sure to follow when writing copy for your website:
1. Use clear and simple language
Reading from computer screens is tiring for the eyes and about 25% slower than reading from printed matter.
13). Baby Acne
One of the most common conditions a new mother may see on her infant, is baby acne. But while it is startling in so young a child, it's really not a s
14). The DRC Blew It
The DRC (Disability Rights Commission) recently announced the results of their year-long investigation into the accessibility of 1000 websites. The DRC's report (http://www.drc-gb.org/publicationsandreports/2.pdf) concluded that most websites are highly inaccessible, with over 81% not even meeting basic standards of accessibility.
There's been a wave of publicity surrounding the DRC announcement, with national press such as The Times reporting on the story.