The Issue of Accessibility – accessibility overlay
In the past, accessibility issues weren’t thought of by many, unless it was something you were personally dealing with. But times have changed. The world is realising that more is needed to give disabled people the equal rights they deserve. For this reason, many countries have now made it a legal requirement to make sure your website is accessible for disabled users. This could sound concerning as you may try your best to make sure it is accessible but worry you have missed something. Or you may not know where to get started. This is where an accessibility overlay really helps.
Accessibility overlays
Put simply, an accessibility overlay is software that is added to your website to detect any potential accessibility issues and automatically fix them for you. They will update the code on your page to make it disabled user friendly. This may mean adding a tool bar, for example.
What are the benefits?
Along with the peace of mind that you are not breaking the law, it is the right thing to do in the fight to treat everyone as equals. No disabled person should be denied access to something that others without a disability can enjoy freely on your website.
But there are other benefits too. It may surprise you to learn that it is estimated that 1.3 billion people are disabled in the world. By making your website accessible to all of these ones, you are increasing your businesses potential greatly. The number of visitors to and sales from your website could see a sharp uptake.
Another benefit is that by having an accessible website, you will boost your rankings on the search engines, which again, can increase your business potential.
It can also protect the reputation of your business. In recent years there have been some high-profile court cases against companies that have fallen behind in the issue of accessibility, and it has only served to damage their reputation, as this is quite a sensitive subject for many.
Summary
This isn’t some problem that will go away if you ignore it, and nor should you want to. Giving disabled people the same access as everyone else is the right and decent thing to do. But as we’ve seen, it also has great benefits for your company as well. You could be doing your business a great disservice by not getting on board with accessibility.
