In the virtual world, we often forget to make provisions for the disabled.  The web is used by almost everybody irrespective of where, what, who etc and people with various disabilities find it difficult to come across any sites that are considerate to them and many sites are out of bounds for them. The World Wide Web Consortium or W3C (W3C Guidelines 1.0) which is the international body responsible for introducing web standards gives guidance through its Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). There are some basic rules that they enforce to make the web friendlier for disabled or ageing people, or people with special needs. It is a shocking fact that during a survey conducted by the Society of IT Management in UK, they found that more than 80% of they sites fail to suit the basic accessibility requirements set by WAI.

One of the biggest challenges faced is catering to people with visual disabilities as the web mostly has pages that need to be viewed for being utilized. For example, if a blind user needs to read a certain newspaper on the web, it would require him to feed the page to a screen reader which would the convert textual information to vocal through synthetic voice (text-to-speech) software. Here, the use of <H1> and <H2> tags would help the user to easily sort the content by knowing that text in <H1> is the title and gives it first preference followed by the text in <H2> which it reads as a subheading. Further finer detailing can be done to provide a hierarchy in the information to allow the user to skip certain unimportant parts while reading the newspaper just as you would. He may also use Braille output hardware. People with partial blindness or low vision may increase system fonts or use screen magnification software. Dyslexic users may have problems reading lengthy pages and will benefit if the design facilitates scanning by proper use of headings as noted above.

People with color blindness have difficulties distinguishing between red and green or between yellow and blue. So it is important to remember to introduce some error icon in forms or important pages where the user would feed information in addition to just using a color-coded message using red to signify error.

Using alt attributes or describing important images like error icons could help users identify certain significant images.

People with motor disabilities would find it difficult to use extremely precise imagemaps. By limiting their use and making links that are easily accessible through keyboard control lets the user browse the site easily.  

People with cognitive, neurological, or learning disabilities will benefit from websites tat are simple and easy to use and navigate through.

Pointers for accessible site design:

• Use CSS for layout, instead of <table>, this will smooth the progress of user defined CSS or for tabular information that can be tabulated in Excel.
• Define all font styles via CSS so they can be changed according to user needs.
• A page must be logical and readable without the use of CSS.
• Use text structure and text presentation using <H1>, <H2>, <P>, <STRONG>, etc. or with <B>, <CENTER>, etc.
• Use meaningful links or link "title" attributes, not just "click here".
• Use meaningful alternative image attributes.
• Do not use blinking text because of epileptic seizure disorders that are triggered by visual blinking.
• Do not use moving text to minimize RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury).
• Use an icon in addition to red color in error situations for color blind users.
• Do not use pop-ups.

Understanding the need to be more human and using actual ‘sense’ instead of ‘form’ is needed when designing for the web because at the end of the day there are real people who are going to be users so sensitizing to their needs is a must. Laos it is important to be aware of the fact the age affects our abilities to perform even simple tasks and it is important to prepare the web as an impartial platform that can be used by anyone irrespective of such binding factors.