About accessibility

1. Why is it important to make your web site accessible?
2. How many students could be affected by inaccessible web sites?

Impairments and the experience of an inaccessible web site:

3. Visual impairment;
4. Hearing impairment, mobility, seizure disorders;
5. Dyslexia.

Making your site meet University standards

6. An approach to accessibility.
7. Web Content Accessibility guidelines (from the W3C WAI).
8. LIFT for Dreamweaver, an automated tool to check your compliance with the W3C WAI guidelines - get it and use it.
9. The University's policies on disability and web site accessibility.

10. Further resources

The University's commitment to web site accessibility

The University has been keen to support staff in building accessible web sites. On 25th April 2001 John Walsh ran a Web Co-ordinators' forum with a focus on raising awareness of accessibility issues in web design and authoring. This Accessibility area of the webforum site is developed from that seminar.

At that stage there was no University policy on web site accessibility. Since then, however, a draft statement that refers to the use of internationally recognised accessibility standards has allowed us to develop more detailed guidance on how to make your pages accessible.

Don't confuse accessibility with usability, which is more widely concerned with making sites easier to use for all your visitors.