4. You will not have to incur legal fees The RNIB (Royal National Institute for Blind) and DRC (Disability Rights Commission) have been exerting pressure on companies and government to make their websites accessible. Indeed, DRC is currently investigating 1,000 websites for accessibility (http://www.drc-gb.org/annualreview/foreword/index.asp#internet). If your organisation’s website is on this list then you can expect to be hearing from them soon.

5. The download time of your website will be significantly improved Just 17% of web users are connected to Internet via broadband (www.liquidzope.com/abc/2/4currentusage/currentstatebbd/view). You can be sure that if your website takes much longer than ten seconds to download then many of your site visitors will be clicking away and you will lose their custom.

6. The usability of your website will be enhanced There is a certain amount of overlap between web accessibility and web usability. It has been shown that a usability redesign increases sales/conversion rate of a website by 100% (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030107.html).

7. You will gain good publicity Make your website accessible to everyone and you can tell world about it.

4. Check that forms are accessible Usually there is prompt text next to each item in a form. For example, a contact form might have prompt text ‘name’, ‘e-mail’, and ‘comments’, each one next to a box where your site users will enter information. When you click on prompt text, does a flashing cursor appear in box next to that text? If not, your forms are inaccessible.

5. Check that text can be resized In Internet Explorer (used by over 90% of Internet users) go to View > Font size > Largest. Does text on your website increase in size? If not, then your website is inaccessible to web users with poor visibility.

6. Check your website in Lynx browser The Lynx browser is a text-only browser and does not support many of features that other browsers such as Internet Explorer have. You can check how your site looks in this browser with Lynx Viewer, available at http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html. If your website makes sense and can be navigated through Lynx browser, then it will be fulfilling many of web accessibility guidelines.

7. Check that you can access all areas of your website without use of a mouse Can you navigate through your website using just tab, shift-tab and return? If not, then neither can keyboard- and voice-only users.

8. Check that there is a site map Can you find a site map? If not, then neither can people who are lost on your website.

9. Check your web pages with an automated program Two programs available for free on Internet are Bobby (http://bobby.watchfire.com) and Wave (http://www.wave.webaim.org). They are unable to provide you with all information that you need, as some checks must be done by humans, but they can tell you some of areas where your site might be going wrong.

10. Hire an expert Hire a web accessibility professional to test your website.