What is web site accessibility?

The goal of accessibility is to make your website content accessible to all people - including those with disabilities, however this theme can also include making sites accessible to different devices (mobile phones, pdas) and internet connections (56k, adsl, t1).

There are devices available for use by people with disabilities, such as screen readers and Braille displays for the blind, but also more basic features available in web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Opera and Mozilla. There are even more features that a web designer can build into a website by simply being informed about the many aspects of accessible web design.

Benefits of an accessible website:

- your site can pass its message to more users.

- some accessibility modifications can improve search engine visibility of your site.

- a properly designed accessible site should be written with code that validates to the w3c specifications - this has many benefits some of which are summarized here.