Accessible Web Design

To be accessible, website pages and sites must conform to certain accessibility principles. These accessibility principles are known as the WCAG when talking about content. These can be grouped into the following main areas.
    * Use semantic markup that provides a meaningful structure to the document (i.e. web page)

    * Semantic markup also refers to semantically organizing the web page structure and publishing web services description accordingly so that they can be recognized by other web services on different web pages. Standards for semantic web are set by IEEE

    * Use a valid markup language that conforms to a published DTD or Schema

    * Provide text equivalents for any non-text components (e.g. images, multimedia)

    * Use hyperlinks that make sense when read out of context. (e.g. avoid "Click Here")

Website accessibility is also changing as it is impacted by Content Management Systems that allow changes to be made to webpages without the need of obtaining web-based programming language knowledge.

It is very important that several different components of web development and interaction can work together in order for the Website to be accessible to people with disabilities. These components include:

    * content - the information in a web page or web application, including:
          o natural information such as text, images, and sounds
          o code or markup that defines structure, presentation, etc.
    * Web browsers, media players, and other "user agents"
    * assistive technology, in some cases - screen readers, alternative keyboards, switches, scanning software, etc.
    * users' knowledge, experiences, and in some cases, adaptive strategies using the Web
    * developers - designers, coders, authors, etc., including developers with disabilities and users who contribute content
    * authoring tools - software that creates web sites
    * evaluation tools - web accessibility evaluation tools, HTML validators, CSS validators, etc.
(en.wikipedia.org)