The power of the Web is in its universality.
Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.
Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web

The Web is fundamentally designed to work for all people, whatever their hardware, software, language, location, or ability. When the Web meets this goal, it is accessible to people with a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive ability.

Thus the impact of disability is radically changed on the Web because the Web removes barriers to communication and interaction that many people face in the physical world. However, when web sites, applications, technologies, or tools are badly designed, they can create barriers that exclude people from using the Web.

Accessibility is essential for developers and organizations that want to create high quality websites and web tools, and not exclude people from using their products and services.

The mission of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is to lead the Web to its full potential to be accessible, enabling people with disabilities to participate equally on the Web.

See below for:

• why: the case for web accessibility
• what: examples of web accessibility
• how: make your website and web tools accessible
• learn more
• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at W3C

Why: The Case for Web Accessibility

The Web must be accessible to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with diverse abilities. Indeed, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes access to information and communications technologies, including the Web, as a basic human right.

Accessibility supports social inclusion for people with disabilities as well as others, such as older people, people in rural areas, and people in developing countries.

Accessibility also benefits people without disabilities. The Web Accessibility Perspectives video shows examples of how accessibility is essential for people with disabilities and useful for everyone in a variety of situations.

There is also a strong business case for accessibility. Accessibility overlaps with other best practices such as mobile web design, device independence, multi-modal interaction, usability, design for older users, and search engine optimization (SEO). Case studies show that accessible websites have better search results, reduced maintenance costs, and increased audience reach, among other benefits. Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization details the benefits of web accessibility.

What: Examples of Web Accessibility

Properly designed websites and tools can be used by people with disabilities. However, currently many sites and tools are developed with accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for some people to use them. Below are just a few examples.

Alternative Text for Images

Images should include equivalent alternative text (alt text) in the markup/code.

If alt text isn't provided for images, the image information is inaccessible, for example, to people who cannot see and use a screen reader that reads aloud the information on a page, including the alt text for the visual image.

When equivalent alt text is provided, the information is available to people who are blind, as well as to people who turn off images (for example, in areas with expensive or low bandwidth). It's also available to technologies that cannot see images, such as search engines.

Keyboard Input

Some people cannot use a mouse, including many older users with limited fine motor control. An accessible website does not rely on the mouse; it makes all functionality available from a keyboard. Then people with disabilities can use assistive technologies that mimic the keyboard, such as speech input.

Transcripts for Audio

Just as images aren't available to people who can't see, audio files aren't available to people who can't hear. Providing a text transcript makes the audio information accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as to search engines and other technologies that can't hear.

It's easy and relatively inexpensive for websites to provide transcripts. There are also transcription services that create text transcripts in HTML format.

How: Make Your Website and Web Tools Accessible

Most of the basics of accessibility are fairly easy to implement. However, if you are new to accessibility, it takes some time and effort to learn the common issues and solutions. Here are places to start:

• Accessibility Principles — introduces accessibility requirements and international standards.
• Easy Checks - A First Review — helps you start testing the accessibility of a web page and understand some common accessibility barriers.
• Tips for Getting Started — provides some basic considerations for designing, writing, and developing.
  

Some accessibility barriers are more complicated to avoid and the solutions take more development time and effort. W3C WAI provides extensive resources to help, such as Tutorials and support materials linked from the WCAG 2 Overview.

Using authoring tools that support accessibility makes it easier for web developers. Browsers also play a role in accessibility. These roles are explained in Essential Components of Web Accessibility.

Learn More

WAI provides a wide range of resources on different aspects of web accessibility standards, education, testing/evaluation, project management, and policy. We encourage you to explore the WAI website, or look through the WAI Resources list.

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Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at W3C

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) brings together people from industry, disability organizations, government, and research labs from around the world to develop guidelines and resources to help make the Web accessible to people with auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and visual disabilities.

WAI's coverage of web accessibility includes:

• "web content" - websites and web applications
• authoring tools, such as content management systems (CMS) and blog software
• browsers and other "user agents"
• WAI-ARIA specification for accessible rich Internet applications

We invite individuals and organizations to participate in WAI by implementing, promoting, and reviewing guidelines and resources; contributing to the WAI Interest Group; and participating in Working Groups.

Current Status of Specifications

Learn more about the current status of specifications related to:

These W3C Groups are working on the related specifications: