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A common misunderstanding about web accessibility is that it is purely about making websites accessible to disabled groups, particularly the blind. While there is a regulatory aspect to web accessibility – websites should be compliant with the third stage of the Disability Discrimination Act (1999) – accessible websites also have significant advantages both for those who manage them and for all users.

Aside from the regulatory issues, some of the benefits of accessible sites are as follows.

They are easier and less expensive to manage. CSS-based sites (sites built using style sheets for their structure) are quicker and thus less costly to update.
They will be compatible with new technology.
They are available to PDAs, mobile phones, in-car browsers, an increasingly important area considering the numbers of business people in particular who work on the move.
They will be available to those without the latest version of Explorer or the latest plug-ins and those with slow Internet connections, particularly home users without broadband (many journalists).
Search engine optimisation: search engines do not understand images, JavaScript, Flash, audio, video etc, so they search accessible sites more effectively and list them first.
Accessible sites are quicker to download (few users will wait more than 10 seconds for a page).
Accessibility overlaps with usability; a usability redesign can increase the sales/conversion rate of a website by 100% (Nielsen).

And, of course, it is good PR for companies to be able to say their website is fully accessible.

Investis accessibility services

For companies that wish to assess the accessibility of their existing website, we can evaluate a website for compliance with accessibility standards using a range of specialist tools such as screen readers, voice browsers and colour-blind checkers. We will suggest changes that need to be made to a site to ensure it meets the accessibility standard a company wishes to achieve.

We offer clients who are planning to relaunch their sites a transparent set of choices so they can make a decision for themselves about the level of compliance they wish to achieve. This ranges from meeting minimum standards to fully accessible websites. We provide clients with the information they need to judge benefits and costs themselves.

For information on the accessibility of this website, please go to Accessibility.

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Contact us to discover how we can help optimise your online corporate communications:
T. +44 (0)20 7038 9023
F. +44 (0)20 7038 9001
E. Lee Harris

Recruitment:
T. +44 (0)20 7038 9000
E. recruitment@investis.com

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