The  Importance  of  Digital  Accessibility  and  why  it  should  ma:er  to  the  business  sector  in  2014  

Lyndon  Borrow  10  June  2014  

What  is  Digital  Accessibility?  

Digital  accessibility  is  creaDng  a  secure  technological  system  for  digital  components  such  as:  

so  that  everyone  can  have  the  same  user  experience  when  they  access  these  types  of  digital  components.  

What  is  Digital  Accessibility?  

How  would  you  access  the  Internet  if…    

•  you  couldn’t  see  the  screen    •  had  difficulDes  hearing  sound    

•  had  trouble  using  a  mouse  or  a  keyboard    

•  had  cogniDve  difficulDes  

AbiliDes  Affect  Digital  Access  

Impact  of  Accessibility  

AssisDve  Technologies  and  Web  Accessibility  enables  people  to  lessen  impact  of  disabiliDes    

•  People  with  vision  impairments  can  listen  to  sites.    

•  People  with  low  vision  can  enlarge  their  screens.    

•  People  with  color  blindness  can  disDnguish  content    

•  People  with  hearing  impairments  can  read  video.    

•  People  with  motor  disabiliDes  can  use  tools  to  operate  keyboards.    

•  Persons  with  cogniDve  disabiliDes  can  understand  and  focus  be:er.  

Why  is  Accessibility  Important?  

Legal  Obliga=ons  and  Risk      

Legal  Requirements    –  Equality  Act      Liability    –  Lawsuits  against    companies  who  do    not  make  their  services    accessible  to  those  with  disabiliDes.      

Accessibility  Standards  

WCAG  Standards    Web  Content  Accessibility  Guidelines  (WCAG)  is  a  series  of  guidelines  published  by  the  W3C  IniDaDve.      The  goal  is  to  create  a  single  shared  standard  for  web  content  accessibility  that  meets  the  needs  of  individuals,  organisaDons,  and  governments  internaDonally.  

So  what’s  really  good  for  business?  

Opportunity:  the  business  case    –  maximising  reach  

11  

MILLION    

Disabled    people  

12  

MILLION    

older  people  (of  pension  age)  

7  

MILLION    

adults  with  low-­‐  literacy  levels  (<age  11)  

Source:  DFEE  

Be:er  accessibility  =>  increase  customer  reach    

=>  more  business  

Business  case  

There  is  the  spending  power  of  disabled  people.    

1  in  2  people  will  be  disabled  at  some  point  in  their  lifeDme.    

So  there  is  an  awful  lot  of  money  there.    

And  it  is  o^en  the  disabled  people  who  do  shopping  online  a  lot  because  they  can’t  physically  get  out  to  the  stores.    

So  in  a  way  it  is  more  important  to  include  them.  

Business  case  

11  million  disabled  people  live  in  the  UK  with  a  combined  annual  spending  power  of  over  £80  billion      

[Source:  DWP  2004]  

 

UK’s  50  to  70  year-­‐olds  currently  runs  at  £300  billion  a  year,  and  this  group  buy  more  designer  fashion,  premium  cars,  and  other  expensive  goods  than  any  other  group.  [Source:  The  Guardian]  

It’s  a  growing  market  

As  a  global,  emerging  market,  the  disability  community  is  an  increasingly  powerful  demographic,  represenDng…  

worldwide  

Usability  benefits    

CreaDng  accessible  websites  makes  your  site  more  usable  for  ALL  users.    

Many  accessibility  principles  are  also  core  usability  principles:    •  Give  users  enough  Dme  to  read  and  use  content.    •  Help  users  navigate  and  find  content.    •  Make  text  readable  and  understandable.  •  Make  content  appear  and  operate  in  predictable  

ways.    •  Help  users  avoid  and  correct  mistakes.  

Accessibility  increases  Findability  

Making  your  site    visible  to  assisDve    technologies  has    an  added  bonus.    

It  also  makes  your    site  more  visible  to    search  engines  as    well!      

Example:    Adding  alt  tags  on    images  allows  the  content  to  be  read  by  screen  readers.      

Google  will  also  index  the  keywords  for  the  images,    which  increases  your  PageRank  for  relevant    search  terms!  

We  can  help  you  

•  We  have  experDse  and  highly  skilled  team  to  help  you  to  improve  your  online  retail  site  with  Digital  Accessibility,  in  order  to  get  much  more  sales  and  business  for  your  company.      

Thank  you  for  watching.  

The  Importance  of  Digital  Accessibility  and  why  it  should  ma:er  to  the  business  sector  in  2014  

Lyndon  Borrow  10  June  2014