Web development is complex. Paying attention to the accessibility of what we build can make it more complex if we don’t understand how everything works together. Web standards help us avoid the complexity when creating, and resolve problems that already exist.
- Read Essential Components of Web Accessibility for a high-level look at the relationships that make a site accessible.
- Become familiar with the WCAG guidelines quickref and the WCAG Guidelines.
- Become familiar with the ATAG guidelines at a glance that we evaluate specific authoring tool components against and the ATAG Guidelines .
- Read The WebAIM Million report to see how inaccessible most companies’ websites are.
Most business-to-business (B2B) companies on the regularly receive sales inquiries from customers that want to know how accessible products are and how the company responds if an accessibility issue is raised. Many of those customers use a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) to compare one company’s accessibility to other companies. When we don’t measure up to our prospects’ needs – or to our competitors’ product – we lose sales.
Read Voluntary Product Accessibility Template on Wikipedia if you work with VPATs and need a high level understanding.