How to achieve Accessibility

1. Make a conscious commitment to accessibility
   
   Establish a management support and a top down commitment. To gain this it is useful to appreciate what accessibility is and the need for, and benefits of accessibility. Develop a policy for your web team and organisation. (WebAIM, 2002 online)
   
   
2. Ensure the design team support and are compliant with accessibility issues and techniques.
   
   All designers should be aware of the importance of accessibility, and design pages accordingly (they should also appreciate the necessity of usability and user-centred design).
   
   The web team should adopt a pragmatic approach - sites can still be feature rich with things like graphics, plug-ins and javascript, although greater care is required and alternatives may need to be provided. (Accessify.com 2003 online)
   
   
3. Test the site.
   
   A preliminary check can be made by following simple accessibility checklists. (W3C 2003 online)
   
   More thorough tests can be made using one of the automated accessibility validation tools such as Bobby - however these give only basic validation, and expertise is required in their use and the interpretation of the results obtained.
   
   Perform a manual check against the WAI checkpoints and WAI guidelines.
   
   Test the site using a range of devices including screen readers, and text only browsers.
   
   Get an accessibility audit and/or accessibility testing from a company with expertise in this area.
   
   
4. Make changes to enhance accessibility.
   
   Unless the site was designed with accessibility in mind there will no doubt be some changes to make. These need not necessarily change the style of the site. It may be just a case of providing alternative descriptions to graphics and using HTML mark-up correctly. Where possible the design team should follow the guidelines of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
   
   
5. If the site is large then changes should be prioritised. An action plan should be created so that:

• The home page, most popular pages or mission critical pages change immediately so that they are in accordance with the most important guidelines.
• All new pages and content should follow all the rules for accessibility.
• Other pages are progressively changed to become accessible - with priority based on the popularity of the pages.
• All pages follow all the rules for accessibility, again prioritised based on the importance and popularity. (W3C 2003 online)