Accessibility

Web self-service must be accessible. If people can't use it, it fails at its job.

Transversal implements Web self-service following the accessibility guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). We help to ensure that all of your customers can use your service. Furthermore, having accessible self-service pages means one more step towards compliance for your whole site.

Why Accessibility Matters

  • It's the law. Under the UK Disability Discrimination Act (1995 and 2005), if you are:

    • a public sector organization, or
    • supply goods and services to the public,

    the service you provide must be accessible by people with disabilities. That includes the service you provide on your Web site.

    Disabilities that can affect use of the Web include blindness, low vision, colour blindness, deafness, restricted hand movement, epilepsy, dyslexia and cognitive difficulties.

  • It's money. The 10 million people in the UK with some type of disability have a combined annual spending power of £80bn. Add the other users for whom low reading levels or lack of computer experience make it hard to navigate inaccessible sites. Now add mobile and handheld users, another group hampered by inaccessible sites.

  • It improves search engine placement. Search engine spiders need accessible text content. Spiders navigate sites more efficiently if the code is clean and the structure is logical.

How We Help

W3C guidelines are based on four principles: that a site should be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. This is what Transversal can give you:

Perceivable

  • CSS controls visual design. This enables content to be marked up according to its logical structure and to be output in different modes.
  • Layout is simple and uncluttered, with emphasis on presenting content.
  • Images and other non-text elements have alternative text that describes their purpose.
  • Text is resizable in all modern browsers.

Operable

  • Each page can have a unique title and meta description.
  • Pages are fully navigable by keyboard.
  • Navigation links clearly describe their purpose and destination.
  • Links enable users to skip directly to the main content of a page.
  • No text blinks, moves or flashes.
  • Form controls have labels and are grouped using the HTML fieldset and legend elements.
  • Text is structured with heading elements.
  • Users can locate a page in multiple ways: natural language search, category browsing, manual cross-references, and automated clustering of related content.
  • Content is organized in branching subject categories. A breadcrumb trail identifies the user's current location.

Understandable

  • Navigation is positioned and ordered consistently on each page.
  • Icons supplement text navigation where appropriate.
  • The language of each page is identified.
  • If a user submits a wrongly completed form, a message describes which fields should be corrected.
  • If a user searches for a term not recognized by the dictionary, the search engine suggests possible spelling corrections.
  • The knowledge management system can be used to implement a glossary. Glossary entries can be cross-referenced from other content in the knowledgebase.

Robust

  • Markup validates to W3C standards up to XHTML 1.0 Strict.
  • Markup elements are used according to their semantic meaning.

To find out more call Transversal on 01223 723388 or email Enquiries.

Please note that this website has been designed for web standards-compliant browsers. You are seeing this message because your browser does not support these standards.