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| 2. Why does my website need to be accessibile ? |
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Since 1st October 1999 under section III of the Disability Discrimination Act, service providers have had to make “reasonable adjustments” for disabled people, such as providing extra help or making changes to the way they provide their services. In 2002, the Code of Practice for part III of the Act was published and specifically mentions that web accessibility is now a legal requirement. |
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| Besides the legal requirements for you to make your website accessible, an accessible website can also help you make and save money through: |
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| (i) Compatibility with new browsing technology – with an increased use of PDAs and mobile phones to surf the web, making your site accessible to these technologies is opening your company up to potential new clients. |
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| (ii) Appearing higher in search engine rankings - Search engines cannot usually understand non-text content, such as images, audio and video. By providing alternative content to each of these forms of content, search engines will have a better understanding of the purpose of the website and potentially move your site up the rankings. |
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| (iii) Increased reach of your site – an inaccessible site would not be able to cater for a large percentage of web users: |
| • There are 8.6 million registered disabled people in the UK , totaling 14% of the population |
| • One in 12 men, and one in 200 women, has some form of colour blindness, totaling 9% of the UK. |
| • Two million UK residents have a sight problem - that's 4% of the population. |
| • There are 12 million people aged 60 or over - approximately 21% of the UK population, and rising. |
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