There are over 1 million people in the UK registered as visually impaired. What may surprise you is that many of these people use the internet on a regular basis, using specialist software that ‘speaks’ the web site or enhances the textual presentation
Problems with Modern Web Sites
Many modern web sites tend to be graphics rich and visually stimulating, but have been built with little consideration for the visually impaired. Unfortunately this approach can have a negative impact on the visually impaired and may prevent them from using these web sites.
By doing this you are in danger of losing a million potential customers, in the UK alone.
Design for Accessibility
However, you can still design visually rich sites, and make them accessible to the visually disabled. Web design standards take into account accessibility and sites designed with it in mind can be visually rich and accessible.
Accessibility is not just about disability
Web sites designed to be accessible are also easily displayed on a variety of devices. An accessible site that looks good on a large computer screen, can also look just as good on the small screen of a Smartphone.
Web browsing on Smartphones is the most rapidly growing internet customer base.
Search Engine Friendly
Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Ask Jeeves use software robots to index your web site. These robots are effectively visually impaired – they don’t care about the pretty pictures they just want to get hold of the text. A web site designed to be accessible makes it much easier for them to do this and to do a better job of indexing your page content.
A well indexed web site on a search engine will help your customers find you!