Ensuring Compliance with Web Accessibility Standards

When designing a web page, it's important to be sure that it can be accessed and utilized by anyone who wants to, regardless of physical limitiations. Failure to do so can result in loss of support, even opening up the possibility of a lawsuit. Standards ensuring that a web page is easy to find and use are set in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. This checklist goes over how a page should be designed so that everybody should be able to use it.

There are a few ways to ensure that your page meets these standards. There are automated WCAG validators that will automatically check a website's specific features and grade them on a pass/fail basis. These are the easiest to use, but they usually can't check every individual component for compliance.

Full WCAG checklists are available as well, also easy to use as you simply have to follow each step of the list to manually make sure your page is compliant. However, while these are easy and helpful, they don't guarantee that everything is as it should be. Even after going throught he entire list, there still may be major issues.

The most effective way to ensure that your webpage is WCAG compliant is testing it with actual human beings. This will reveal issues that the other methods miss and provide relevant feedback. It also helps you understand why a non-compliant feature creates problems. There are professional evaluators who provide this service with a team of people who have experience and also a wide range of disabilites to provide the most helpful feedback.

Each of these methods can help make sure your page meets the current standards and is inclusive of everyone. A combination of several or all of these will prevent legal problems and make your page hassle-free and enjoyable for everyone.