Website Legislation and Good Design Practise
As of October 2004, both private and public companies need to be aware of part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act. This act requires websites to meet a required standard to allow effective access to the information contained within a website to the 8.6 million disabled British people.
The Disability Rights Commission (DRC), established in April 2000 to protect the rights of disabled persons by Parliament will be able to take action for disabled individuals who feel they are discriminated against. This means that the images and text in a disabled discrimination compliant website should be supported by the spoken word.
You need to be aware of these and other issues regarding the Government Guidelines and the Disability Discrimination Act. The Internet Works can advise at the start of your project to ensure you are aware and comply with any current or future issues.
Resolution Issues
Due to the nature of users and the availability of higher quality hardware at continually reducing prices there are a wide range of resolutions used to view the internet. The resolution is the size that is set on the monitor of a particular computer that a browser uses to view a website, these resolutions may be as small as 640x480, and as the quality of graphic cards and monitors increase so do the viewing sizes of the browsers.
Websites developed by our professional designers are viewable in all the current resolution settings; this means that the impression of the website is still as effective when viewed by the lowest resolution as it is by the highest.
Browser Compatibility Issues
As with the resolution issues of the Internet, there are also issues regarding the browser software, various types of browsers view the websites in different ways; a Mac for example may use an Apple browser whilst most PC users will use Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape. Each of these software browser applications will require different coding, testing and configuration to ensure that the website is being viewed correctly by all types.
Development Standards Information
The Internet Works ensures our designers and developments are aware of all new standards and meet the good practice standards, compatibility and conformation that allow your website design project to be viewed and used by the widest possible variety of users.
BOBBY(Watchfire) - This is the term for the service that helps expose and repair barriers to accessibility and encourage compliance with existing accessibility guidelines, such as Section 508 and the W3C's WCAG.
Please visit the accessibility section on http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/ukpga_19950050_en_1 for more information
W3C HTML to XHTML 1.1 - Development standard.
W3C CSS - Cascading style sheet design standard.
W3C WAI/WCAG 1.0 - Website accessibility initiative design standard.
For more information please view: www.w3c.org/