Some organisations are changing to their websites, but many are seemingly not making adjustments. Disabled people don’t access their website, they say, so why should they care?

There are, however, two very good reasons as to why businesses should start taking these issues seriously:

1.An accessible website will make you more money 2.An accessible website will save you money

There are seven reasons for this being applicable:

1. Your website will be easier to manage An accessible website separates content (the words and images that we see on screen) and presentation (the way that these words and images are laid out) of each page. Each web page has an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) document, which contains words and images for that page (the content), and calls up a CSS (Cascading StyleSheets) document that includes presentation information – this CSS document is shared by all pages on website. To adjust layout of your website, you only have to make changes in one file, saving considerable time (and therefore money).

2. Your website will be compatible with new browsing technologies In near future, use of PDAs, mobile phones and in-car browsers will all regularly be used to access Internet. The people making use of these new technologies are generally high-income individuals. In order to reach this lucrative target, you will need a website that can work on these machines. To test your website, try accessing it on Wapalizer, a free program available at http://www.gelon.net, which shows how your site will look on a mobile phone.

1. Check informational images for alternative text Place cursor over an informational image, for example, organisation logo. Does a yellow box appear with a brief, accurate description of image? For users whose browsers do not support images, this alternative text is what they will see (or hear) in place of image.

2. Check decorative images for alternative text Place cursor over a decorative image that does not have any function other than to look nice. Does a yellow box appear with a description of image? It should not. There is no reason for users whose browsers do not support images to know that this image is there, as it serves no purpose.

Be careful though as this is not a foolproof test. If a yellow box does not appear, this could mean one of two things:

•The alternative text of image is assigned a null value, which means that it will be ignored by browsers that do not support images. This is ideal scenario. •The alternative text of image is simply not set at all, which means that users whose browsers do not support images will be alerted to its existence but will be unable to find out what purpose it carries – something which is very frustrating! This is certainly not desired outcome.