I've become the de-facto web designer for my recruitment company. We got a feedback email saying our site wasn't "access-freindly". I think the person is blind, so where can I get the relevant info? Is there someone who can make the changes for me?

"Bin" Hawthorn, Hamilton, NZ

The problem of accessibility of websites is ongoing and is in part caused by the nature of HTML itself. Most website designers want to create attractive looking websites and many of the tools that they use to do this cause problems when viewed with a text to speech browser such as are used by people with visual disabilities. HTML just wasn't designed for the tasks it 's being asked to perform or to meet the needs of both designers, end users and specialist software such as text to speech browsers. In Australia, to my knowledge, the Disability Discrimination Act of 1992 applies to many websites as a result of a court case which took place in the lead up to the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

The accepted standard for accessibility is the guidelines set down by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C). The current guidelines are the 1999 1.0 version and these will remain in force until the newer 2.0 Guidelines become a Recommendation which, as yet, they are not.

The web accessibility guidelines specify three levels of priority, 1, 2 & 3. The Priority 1 guidelines are considered a basic requirement which must be adhered to, Priority 2 guidelines should be satisfied and Priority 3 guidelines may be addressed. Most Priority 1 guidelines include describing Alt text for images, image map regions and the like. They also require that information conveyed using colour also be available without the use of colour. There are also other considerations such as the ability to read a web page without its associated style sheet and other requirements for tables and frames.

Before attempting to fix a website put it through the test at WebXact: . This is the successor of the old Bobby accessibility checker. You can check each page one at a time and they can be analysed for compliance with whichever W3C guidelines you're interested in and the US Section 508 requirements. The results are delivered in a format you can use as a guide to the fixes required. In most cases you will probably find that all that is required in the way of skill to fix the problems is a knowledge of HTML or a good GUI authoring tool.

While bringing a site up to the required standard of accessibility may be time consuming and involves some cost, it should also be considered to be good business. With an aging population issues such as readability of a site will be increasingly important and ensuring that your site is accessible to all who wish to view it is a courtesy to other web users. You will find a plethora of information on the web regarding accessibility and one place to start your investigation is the Australian Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission website.

Helen Bradley