HERAGHTY INTERNET CONSULTANTS provides a full range of services to assist online ventures. Our mission is to discover, design and implement internet-enabled opportunities for our clients.
At Heraghty Internet, we are increasingly requested to produce Accessibility and Standards Compliance Audits, as our reputation for professionalism and thorough understanding of the issues grows.
Accessibility involves making your website or online application available to the whole computer-using community, including the visually or physically impaired, those on low-bandwidth connections, etc.
Recognising that different types of users have different needs, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – an international group tasked with promoting internet interoperability – has devised a list of accessibility guidelines.
These are known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The first version contains 14 guidelines, each containing a priority of 1, 2, or 3.
The W3C says that, in order to be accessible, websites must comply with all priority 1 guidelines. This is called Single A Compliance.
The W3C says that websites should comply with all priority 1 and 2 guidelines. This is called Double A Compliance.
Websites that comply with all guidelines – priority 1, 2 and 3 – have Triple A Compliance.
While the law is different in different countries, many countries have discrimination legislation that requires websites to be accessible to all users.
In the UK, website owners have been sued for discrimination in relation due to poor accessibility.
In Ireland, the Government has published Recommended Guidelines for Public Sector Organisations, which sets of a list of accessibility and other guidelines to which public sector websites must comply. These guidelines are roughly consistent with WCAG Double A compliance.
In the USA, Section 508 legislation raises the possibility of users taking criminal action against inaccessible websites.
In Europe, the EU has issued a formal Recommendation that websites must have at least Double A Compliance with the WCAG.
Yes. In EU countries, all websites of registered business have certain legal requirements about how they display their business details.
If you are conducting transactions or retaining customer details via your website, you must comply with data protection laws.
Yes. We strongly advise you to ensure that your website complies with various technical standards. These include W3C code validation standards, which ensures that your website code is well structured.
By complying with these standards, you will ensure that your website can be seen by the maximum number of people, using different browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) on different operating systems (e.g. Windows, Mac).
Technical standards compliance will also help future-proof your website; it will be less likely to “break” in newer browsers.
Yes. As part of our Accessibility & Standards Compliance Audits, we test your website on a number of the main browsers, browser versions (including Internet Explorer 4.0, 5.0, 5.5, 6.0 and 7.0), and operating systems.
For more information, or to request an audit, please contact us .
Email:
Phone: +353 1 4806214
Mobile: +353 87 9279444