Accessible Web Site Design

What is an accessible web site?

An accessible web site is a site that has been built so people with disabilities can access it. For instance, older users, visually impaired or blind users and those with learning difficulties, can understand, navigate and read accessible web sites.

Why does building accessible web sites matter?

Businesses have moral, social and legal responsibilities to provide equal access to their web sites to people with and without disabilities.

At Stone Square, we’ve invested a great deal of time into researching web site accessibility and we believe that it can benefit businesses and their customers in several ways. Building accessible web sites:

  • Allows you to effectively reach a wider customer audience
  • Demonstrates your commitment to best practice
  • Ensures your site complies with the law - the current Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) states that businesses are required to make products and services available to people with disabilities
  • Benefits visitors without disabilities too - accessible web sites are generally easier to use and navigate and display well on a wide range of browsers and devices
  • Potentially increases visitors to your web site - it’s believed that accessible web sites perform better on search engines such as Google, Msn and Yahoo

If you want to further explore the benefits of building accessible web sites, we recommend you read the excellent Introduction to Web Accessibility guide by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which describes what an accessible web site is and why it might benefit your organisation.

Does your business need an accessible web site?

We think that over the next few years accessibility will rightly become the norm for all web sites. Why not lead the way and embrace best practice now?

Whether you’re looking to build an accessible web site from scratch, or want to bring your existing web site up to standards, we’d be happy to help. Just call Sophie or Tim on 01422 343 840 or email info@stonesquare.com to discuss your project.

So what do the logos on our site mean?

As you would expect, the Stone Square web site is accessible and the images we display on our web site show that the programming and structure of our web site adheres to certain standards associated with accessibility guidelines. These standards are laid out primarily by the World Wide Web Consortium and are widely recognised as the ultimate best practice for web site design.

Valid XHTML 1.0
This icon shows that our XHTML code has been seen as valid by W3C’s Markup Validation Service and therefore conforms to W3C Recommendations.

Valid CSS
This means that the Cascading Style Sheets used to style this web site have been validated by W3C’s CSS Validation Service and therefore conforms to W3C Recommendations.

Triple-A Accessibility Conformance
This shows that our web site conforms to W3C’s Triple-A level of accessibility as laid out in their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The Triple-A standard is the highest level possible.

Valid RSS
This means that the RSS feed we produce on this web site meets the standards laid out by W3C on RSS feeds and has been validated by their Feed Validation Service.