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Ensure Your Website Is Accessible to Those With Disabilities

danieltburns — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:16:20 +0000

When it comes to the online face of your business, it’s important to be accessible to every potential client within your demographic, including those with disabilities. You certainly don’t want to do anything that alienates a particular niche within that demographic yet many websites do just that inadvertently by failing to consider this niche audience.

While disabilities can run the gamut from physical to mental, there are primary types of disabilities you should consider when assessing and designing or redesigning your website – disabilities that are visual, auditory, cognitive or motor in nature. If you aren’t taking these types of disabilities into account when you design your website, you could unintentionally be making your website more difficult to use for those who fall within this demographic. The end result is that you shut yourself off from potential audience members and ultimately prospective clients.

An Easy-to-Use Website for the Visually Impaired

Since the core basis of the Internet is visual, you may assume that no one with a vision disability would be accessing your site at all; however, this is incorrect. Visual disabilities come in many varieties, including blurred vision, patchy vision and colorblindness.

While those with 20/20 vision see crisp, precise images, those with blurred or patchy vision may have trouble distinguishing letters and shapes. To help those with this type of disability, implement good contrast between foreground and background images or text on your site, thereby making it easier to read text and process images. Also, utilize font sizes that are large enough to read easily, even for those with less-than-perfect vision.

Colorblind individuals aren’t able to differentiate between colors, and often view distinctly different colors as merely slight variations of the same shade. Consider this when you design your website. Don’t just use color to differentiate between items; instead incorporate the use of symbols or words whenever possible.

Keep in mind that those with severe vision issues may use screen-reading software that audibly reads the text from your website to them. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that your website is compatible for this type of software. Make sure your site’s heading are properly tagged, and keep links and headings as specific and helpful as possible.

Make Your Website Usable for Those With Auditory Disabilities

Since the majority of your website is visual, chances are it is pretty accessible for those with hearing disabilities. Do a quick review of your site to make sure that there are no features that can’t be used by those with hearing issues.

If your site features any video, add captions to it so those with hearing disabilities can enjoy the video in the same way as those with perfect hearing. If you aren’t able to add captions to your video, have a full transcript of the video available for those who desire to read it.

Accessibility for Those With Cognitive Disabilities

Individuals with cognitive disabilities are not able to process information as quickly or easily as others. Websites that are disorganized, cluttered or very busy are often difficult for those with cognitive impairment. While these sites are quite challenging for those with these disabilities, they are also not ideal for the general public. Aim to keep your site simple, clear and easily digestible.

Review your site’s pages and see if they are easy to understand and scan. If you find your eyes drifting around the page at the bevy of links, images and text, it’s likely to be an issue for those with cognitive disabilities. Avoid excessive animation and video to keep things straightforward. Also, avoid auto-playing video or audio as this can be overwhelming to those with cognitive impairment.

Make It Easy for Those With Physical Disabilities

Those with physical disabilities may not have full use of their hands and arms, making the use of a traditional keyboard and mouse laborious. Thankfully, there are a wide variety of devices available to help those with physical disabilities.

Since a specialized keyboard or mouse allows users the same functionality as a traditional one, you don’t have to consider too much when designing your site. You should, however, avoid putting clickable items too close together as this can be difficult for those using a foot mouse. Try to make all movement on the site easy to control via up/down, right/left or click movements.

Let Us Help You Make Your Site Accessible to Your Entire Prospective Audience

Here at DBurns Design, we can help you make your website accessible to your entire prospective audience, including those with disabilities. Whether you need to simplify your homepage or clean up your site’s video, our design and technology experts can help. Give us a call today to get started or to ask any questions you may have about the process.

Google Chrome Tops Firefox as the “Fastest” Browser

danieltburns — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:13:52 +0000

Gomez, a division of Compuware, has named Google’s Chrome browser as the fastest of its kind, beating out such competitors as Firefox, Internet Explore and Safari. Gomez opted against structured tests and based its findings on “real world” usage, utilizing broadband connections.

As cited by TechCrunch, reports illustrated data that was compiled over one month, across 200 websites. The reports found that Chrome’s page-load time, at 3.43 seconds, was one-half second faster than Firefox. Chrome’s time beat out IE and Safari by a full second.

Firefox, however, narrowly beat out Chrome in the “perceived render time” category, with both Firefox and Chrome scoring far ahead of IE and Safari. That being said, the entire range of results for all browsers was approximately one second.

Some have questioned Gomez’s test and its results, noting that broadband connections vary greatly, thereby compromising the validity of any results. Since so many factors can come into play, some critics say that no definitive winner can be named in this battle.

HTML5 Draft Specification Achieves ‘Last Call’ Status

admin — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:20:34 +0000

The World Wide Web Consortium, also known as W3C, opted to advance HTML5 forward, to Last Call status. This is a significant move for the draft specification after more than three years of testing and development.

While advocates of HTML5 are undoubtedly excited over this move forward, they shouldn’t be jumping up and down just yet. It’ll still be quite a while – even several years – before HTML5 is officially recommended by W3C. The W3C’s Last Call status signifies that there will be 10 more weeks of further testing and reports.

After that period has passed, the HTML Working Group of the W3C will have until January of 2012 to correct all outstanding issues. If all issues are corrected satisfactorily, HTML5 will then advance to Candidate Recommendation status. If it passes that phase, it will reach the final status as an official W3C Recommendation, and likely venture into widespread use.

While most developers are eager to see HTML5 move forward through the vetting process – in fact, many developers are already utilizing aspects of it online – there are those who are opposed to its advancement. Among them is Daniel Glazman, W3C’s Working Group co-chairman. Glazman voted against HTML5’s Last Call status, voicing his concern about the lack of longdesc in HTML 5. Since HTML5 is intended to be compatible with earlier versions of HTML, the longdesc deficiency could lead to problems with those using HTML4.

Others in W3C aren’t concerned about the descents against HTML5, since it’s rare that any status change garners unanimous support amongst all members. Regardless of opposition, it seems inevitable that HTML5 will continue to move forward.

Here at DBurns Design, we remain on the cutting-edge of the latest developments in the programming world, utilizing the latest developments in our professional Los Anglees website design services. Our expert designers and programmers ensure our clients’ websites feature the very best technology and creativity, so their sites not only looks amazing but functions amazingly as well. Contact us today for more information on our Los Angeles website design services; we’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.