Leading up to December 2014 every new site build had a request for accessibility, once the time passed and it was clear there would be no one policing it, accessibility seems to have been forgotten.
100% website compliance is not easy, especially if you want to have functionality and media content such as youtube. When I was studying the University of SA’s Professional Certificate in Web Accessibility (great course highly recommended) the clear message was that if it’s not accessible it shouldn’t be on your website. That is a difficult call, especially for videos that are hard to convert into an accessible format.
There are a few things I look at with every site I visit (I can’t help myself) – if your site does these things and you specifically added to your contract, quote or tender that the site had to have some level of accessibility compliance you should sack your designer or developer immediately. If your site has been built within the last three years and you didn’t include anything in your contract, quote or tender about accessibility you have done a disservice to your community by not giving accessibility any priority.
There is no excuse for not getting two of the basics right:
- Poor text contrast
- Links and menus without hover states (or appropriate contrast)*
If you don’t have these right people in the community with a disability or vision issues can’t actually read your site. It’s a few lines of CSS (if your site has been built well) and there is no excuse for it.
Rant over.
*Edit: ok styling menus can be a flippin' pain in the butt - I don't blame someone starting out for giving up and throwing in the towel. But the next day pull your socks up, find a useful resource and sort it out!
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