Put simply, web site accessibility is about ensuring that the content on your web site is accessible to as wide an audience as possible (including search engines), regardless of their browsing software, viewing platform or level of (mental or physical) ability.
Accessibility is part-and-parcel of Web standards and search engine optimisation (SEO), and should be built into every web site as standard, but it is still surprising that so many website haven’t adopted this as best practice.
By not building accessibility into the heart of web development, you risk losing potential customers, alienating users, reducing your search engine ranking and possible legal implications for discriminating against those with disabilities.
Hungry Browser and web accessibility
All Hungry Browser web sites (including this one) are built in accordance with WCAG and Section 508 accessibility guidelines.
This web site has been tested across the following browsers:
- Firefox
- IE 7.0
- IE 6.0
- IE 5.5
- Opera 9
- Safari
Web standards
By employing W3C web standards practice(s), encouraging semantic markup techniques (XHTML) and separating style from content (CSS), our content needs only to be published once and will be accessible to the widest possible audience.
Techniques
This web site uses the following techniques to enhance the accessibility of it’s content.
- Acronym tags to provide meaningful explanation of common abbreviations
- ALT Text – Meaningful alternative text for images for non-visual browsers
- Breadcrumb trail to provide a visual cue to visitors to where they are within the site
- CSS – complete separation of style from content
- Device independent design providing open access to content on all platforms and devices
- Fluid page layout to allow access to content regardless of visitor’s screen resolution
- Meaningful Title tags to provide search engines and visitors with a cue to where the are within the site
- Print style sheet to provide print-friendly version of pages, without duplicating site content
- Semantic XHTML – correctly structured HTML documents, with meaningful content hierarchy
- Skip navigation link to allow non-visual browsers to skip navigation links
- Title attributes to provide helpful hints/tool tips
