Accessible Website Design
Almost one in five Australians have a disorder of some sort, whether they be blind, colour blind, motive impaired or mentally impaired. Their disorder should not restrict them from accessing your website which is why Shock Media pays a great deal of attention to accessibility in every website we develop.
Does Shock Media develop W3C Compliant Websites?
Yes. As a standard, Shock Media develops accessible websites (accessibility design) using W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) XHTML Compliant code. We apply the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) by using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to every one of our websites to ensure at least Phase 1 is met.
How does it affect my website?
While WAI sounds like a good initiative it is also part of Australian Law and all website's built after January 2000 must comply to at least WAI Phase 1 or face complaints, demands to upgrade or in some cases, possible lawsuits.
By applying accessibility to your website as a standard, you are also in effect improving its accessibility and listing position to search engines, your reach to different technologies (handheld devices and screen readers) and increasing your target market demographic.
"In 2008 alone there will be an estimated 58 million people accessing the Internet from handheld PDA devices - that is a huge target market demographic to be simply overlooked (source: eTForecast)."
More information
If you think that your website fails to meet the standard Australian law accessibility requirements, please click here to contact us to review your website.