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Web access standards are a set of initiatives to allow easier access to web content for those who are differently-abled, those who have older or less capable computer systems, and those who's systems use emerging technologies. Web access standards allow those differently-abled people to use today's web sites. For example, handheld computers are a multi-purpose device with one feature that allows users to surf the web. The small screen of a handheld computer can cause the user to have to scroll constantly because the web site is not reformatted to fit the user's screen. A solution to this accessibility problem is to create a custom Cascading Style Sheet, formatted specifically for handheld computer users.
The access standards provide a set of carefully formulated guidelines, so that web sites that implement these standards will be able to be accessed by differently-abled users or older computer systems. The guidelines are presented on the
W3C web site, published by an organisation that was created to design all the HTML standards so that a single web page can be viewed in all browsers. If there had not been a force behind these standards, web browsers would have developed separately and it would have been impossible to view one web page on all browsers. The browsers would probably have eventually joined forces to provide an internet standard but because of the W3C standards, this happened right from the start, ensuring the explosion of the internet and the success of the current world wide web. The supply of accessible web pages will create more demand for accessible web pages.The standards are implemented at both the design stage, and at the HTML implementation stage. The guidelines mainly apply to the implementation stage. The simplest way to make your site access compliant is to use
Bobby, a free online service which checks each web page for compliance based on either the web content accessibility guidelines 1.0 or the US section 508 Guidelines.For my own application of the accessibility standards, I made the content of a set of web pages consistent with HTML '4.01 'Strict' using Cascading Style Sheets. This resulted in a rating of W3C Guidelines 1.0 standard of 'AA'.This site can be found at:
http://myhome.ispdr.net.au/~ariseres/online_case_studies/insurance/index.htm - Policy Cycle Analysis of the Insurance Crisis.http://myhome.ispdr.net.au/~ariseres/online_case_studies/insurance/index.htm
http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp Bobby Watchfire
http://www.w3c.org/ W3C Web Site
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/handbook/accessibility.htm Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia On Accessibility
Designing More Usable Web Sites
