Disability Discrimination Act and Websites

As a business, the Disability Discrimination Act means you now have an obligation to make yourself and your business accessible to the disabled. This is serious stuff - look at all the wheelchair ramps that are popping up everywhere and doors being made wider. Businesses are taking this seriously. There are many types of disability, but in the context of the web and Internet the major obstacle is visual disability. Aural impairment can be addressed via suitable audio equipment fitted to the computer. Making everybody happy You can ensure that your web pages are more readable to those with poor eyesight by simply making the text bigger. You also should ensure that text is high contrast - black on white rather than light gray on white. At the same time you do not want to make the website a trial for those with normal eyesight. The easy way to sort this out is to let the user pick the text size that suits them best. We now advise our customers to allow two or three sizes of text on the website which can be selected simply by clicking on a button. The graphic shows a partial screen shot of a website that has text sizes of "Standard", "Large" and "Largest", all selectable by a single mouse click. These simple changes can be made to existing websites, although if you are planning to redevelop a website you should include these features in the new version. Why not ensure that all your customers can actually read your message?