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[♪♪]

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You may have heard of 
accessibility in the past

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or maybe you heard somewhere 
that your website should be accessible,

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but what does that even mean?

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The idea of anyone being able 
to use a website sounds simple enough,

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but it's more nuanced than that.

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There are lots of people in the world,

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and there's many considerations to be made.

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In general though,

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there is one guiding principle 
that should make accessibility

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a lot easier 
for anyone to understand.

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Web standards and best practices 
tend to lead towards more accessible websites

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and vice versa.

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Designing a website to be 
accessible tends to lead you

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towards web standards 
and best practices.

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For example, screen reading software 
that assists users with visual impairments

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can sometimes have difficulty 
when tables are used for layout

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rather than being used 
for tabular data.

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There are many different types 
of impairments that encompass

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vision, hearing, motor skills, and more.

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We'll learn about 
specific techniques to accommodate

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all these different types of users.

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Before we get into 
the technical details,

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let's back up because sometimes 
web developers and designers wonder

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why they should be so concerned 
with accessibility in the first place.

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There are numerous reasons,

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but here are three 
really important ones.

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First and most importantly, 
it's just the right thing to do.

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The web represents 
a giant leap forward in the quality of life

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for people with disabilities.

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For example, before the advent 
of online news and screen readers,

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it was difficult, expensive, 
and oftentimes impossible

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for a person with visual impairments 
to read a daily newspaper.

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That alone should be reason enough.

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Second, as I mentioned earlier,

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building accessible websites 
has a tendency to lead towards HTML markup

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that is semantic and easy for everyone, 
even computers, to understand and interpret.

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Every designer and developer 
should understand the importance of this.

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Lastly, you can get into trouble legally 
if you're not careful.

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Many countries have laws 
that require government agencies

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along with public and private organizations 
to maintain web content

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that is accessible to people 
of all abilities and disabilities.

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In the year 2000, 
a blind Australian man engaged in a court case

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against the Sydney organizing committee 
of the Olympic Games,

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and he won the case because, 
under the Australian Disability Discrimination Act of 1992,

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the official website 
of the Sydney Olympic Games

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failed to provide 
adequate accessibility to blind users.

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Legal disputes of this nature 
can be extremely costly,

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but they're also so easily avoidable 
by simply providing accessible content.

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As we'll learn, 
it's not as difficult as it might seem.

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Whether you're creating a new website 
or even if you're updating an old one,

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you should familiarize yourself 
with the local and federal laws

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that the website 
will be subjected to.

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Here are a few documents 
to help you get started.

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The World Wide Web Consortium, 
or W3C for short,

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is an organization that sets the rules 
for HTML, CSS, and many other standards.

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A W3C project known as 
the Web Accessibility Initiative, or WAI,

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published the first version of the 
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG, in 1999.

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Since then 
and especially in recent years,

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it has been accepted as the gold standard 
for creating accessible websites.

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By the end of 2008,

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the WCAG 2.0 had been released 
by the WC3 as a recommendation.

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I highly recommend that you take a look 
at this document and read it over.

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It is lengthy,

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and we cover quite a bit 
of the information it contains.

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But even so, 
you should at least look at it for reference.

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In 1998, the United States Congress amended 
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973

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to include Section 508 
which requires federal agencies

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to make electronic information accessible 
to people with disabilities.

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The portions regarding web technology

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are based on the guidelines developed 
by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the W3C,

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and this is also the case for laws 
and regulations around the world.

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In the UK, for instance,

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the Publicly Available Specification,
or PAS 78, published in 2006

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also references the WAI guidelines.

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This is also true in Canada, Spain, Japan,
and many other countries.

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But even so, you should 
study the laws that are local to your country

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and strive to comply with them.

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Accessibility might seem 
difficult or confusing right now,

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but we'll go through everything 
one step at a time.

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[♪♪]