Fortunately, the world has become a lot more disabled-friendly in the last few decades and helpful tools such as ramps and handles are a lot more common making the world more accessible for the disabled.

However, when it comes to website accessibility the online world has a long way to go.

There is a great deal of discussion these days with respect to appropriate development practices and accessible website design and style. If you don’t believe any of this applies to your website, you almost certainly do not understand what this is all about.

Website Accessibility relates to the process of developing websites that will be able to be used by people of any ability or disability. Numerous issues come into play when accounting for a person’s eyesight, mobility, auditory and logic capabilities.

For example, a huge number of people are affected by colour blindness.

What is colour blindness? Colour blindness (colour vision deficiency, or CVD) impacts somewhere around 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women in the world. In The United Kingdom, this means that there are roughly 3 million colour blind people (about 4.5% of the overall population), the majority of whom are men.

In Australia, about 8% of men and 0.4% of women are affected by colour blindness to some extent.

That alone could mean that, for millions of people, your fancy website is pretty much unusable and this is just one example!

The Web Accessibility Initiative

The WAI started in 1999 by the World Wide Web Consortium and is viewed as the standard set of guidelines for creating accessible websites.

We are at a point now where there is no doubt accessibility is becoming extremely important, in fact, it is already a legal requirement in some countries with hundreds of lawsuits underway and fines into six figures being imposed!

Whilst the threat of a large fine might be enough to stir website owners into action it isn’t the only reason to take accessibility seriously.

Number one – It’s the right thing to do!

Another of the main benefits of course is increased usability, which according to usability guru, Jakob Nielson, https://www.nngroup.com/ can increase the sales/conversion rate of a website by 100% and traffic by 150%.

Website accessibility offers so many added benefits that I honestly do question why such a huge number of websites have such diabolically inadequate accessibility.

The great news is that Activate Action Marketing is now offering an affordable service to take your WP website accessibility to a whole new level.

We will evaluate your WP website accessibility, and will then implement the latest recommended WordPress accessibility strategies and techniques.

Contact us today to get an estimate.

DISCLAIMER

Whilst we will improve your WordPress website accessibility, it may not be enough to cover the unique compliance needs of your particular business. Therefore, once we have made changes, we recommend you consult a professional consultant to make sure your business practices and site accessibility are adequate for your situation and implement any extra measures if required.