14 March 2007

Companies should hold the same regard for accessibility for their websites as they do for their physical premises, according to a blind persons' association.

Dave Thompson, a spokesman for the Oxfordshire Association for the Blind, states that too many websites utilise text that is often too small to read, meaning that the needs of visually impaired consumers are not always fully met.

Furthermore, website designs should include provisions for easy compatibility with magnification software and screen reading applications, he told The Oxford Mail.

"A business wouldn't get away with failing to provide disabled access to their building and it shouldn't be any different with access to their website," he remarked.

Mr Thompson added that the failure to provide text tags to photographs on the Internet, for example, can "create problems" for visually impaired users because it can be difficult to discern the contents of an image without written clarification.

Recently, a survey from the Society of IT Management revealed that local authority websites could improve their accessibility standards further.

The report's author, Martin Greenwood, said that the "customer journey" is the most important aspect of a website, according to IT Pro.

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