Thursday, November 13, 2008

Texas Web Designers make the web accessible for the disabled

By Jordan FeRoss

The agency that establishes web design policies and best practices, the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), recently met to address web accessibility by disabled individuals and foreigners, specifically non-English speakers. New laws were passed that will help these groups navigate cyberspace with greater facility, requiring Texas Web Designers to be meticulous about designing and coding.

The new laws passed under House Bill 2819 require state agencies to guarantee that disabled individuals are able to access electronic information resources as easily as those who are not disabled, with some exceptions. Some agencies simply do not have the financial resources to make such changes. In these cases, they will be allowed to appeal to have the requirement nullified. Most Texas Web Designers believe this will not be adhered to 100% of the time in the beginning.

Although it may be tempting to cut a few corners and save some money by appealing this decision using this loophole, companies should consider the profits they may produce by gaining a wider audience, not to mention the good PR. Some companies, with the help of Texas Web Designers, have already made such changes voluntarily, and these companies can testify to the record profits such innovative changes have produced.

All Texas Web Designers, coders, programmers, specialists and IT gurus should be made aware of this crucial change to the way we think about our target audience. Per the Standards Review and Recommendations Publication, "People aged 45 through 54 have an 11.5 percent chance of developing a disability. This figure nearly doubles to 21.9 percent for those aged 55 through 64. The number of workers aged 55 and older will grow from 13 percent of the labor force in 2000 to 20 percent in 2020." (SRRPUB11) This means even now there is opportunity to expand your market by just making a few changes to your current website. But many businesses are still being told that the expense is not worth it. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

And if you're concerned that these changes would be too big of an undertaking for your organization, you need not fear. It can be done quickly and cheaply most of the time, especially with the advancement of dynamic programming languages like ASP.net and PHP/MySQL, it is easier and easier to implement site-wide changes in just a few clicks.

And companies that are still using pure HTML/CSS are usually small sites that the change could be done on in little to no time at all. But it is always best not to talk about such important changes at this level of abstraction. Go speak with some Texas Web Designers today to find out what these changes entail for your organization. You may be surprised.

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