19 November 2008
Accessibility focuses on use of your site by people who use Assisted Technologies, people for example with vision or hearing impairments. U.S. Section 508 addresses these topics in some detail.

In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities.

Current web site design employs the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for design and layout, CSS was originally spearheaded by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), since developers are using CSS, their web sites should be developed as closely to the WAI standards as possible.

With all that in mind, no, accessibility should not cost any more in the development of a web site.

Although there are differing levels of compliance to accessibility, they are no harder to implement during the initial development of a web site; while different options selected by the client may prohibit the highest level of compliance the goal of any developer should be to ensure the highest level of accessibility possible. Not to mention that if your web site is a site that focuses on commerce, you will be ignoring a large base of potential sales if accessibility standards are ignored.

It may be best to consider interviewing additional web site developers prior to entering in to a contract with a company that will charge you extra for consideration of Usability and Accessibility standards.

19 November 2008
Hi James

I agree with Mark above, this should not cost you any more when creating a new site. The guidelines are really very easy to meet once you've done it a few times, and takes no more effort in the initial site build. Many sites will be started from a standard base 'template' anyway, so if this complies then so will the new site.

As a developer I would always strive to create the best product possible. You can choose to develop to the highest standards - or not, and why would you do the latter?

Also remember there are not just 'accessibility' standards, but technical ones too which all have an impact on the quality of your finished website. If the developer is lax in some areas this might be the same for other things too! You might find 'accessible' developers have generally higher charges on account of producing better quality work, but no individual designer should add a premium for meeting what should be a minimum standard.

Kind regards

Emma

19 November 2008
It is very important to make your site accessible

read about Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) here
http://www.w3.org/WAI/

26 November 2008
Hi, it is not imperitive to have a fully accessible website and follow the guidlines completely. It is not difficult to make a website fully accesible aswell so there shouldnt be additional costs involved.

2 December 2008
The answer to this question depends on what level of accessibility you wish to adhere to. There are 3 'levels' of priority when designing a website that any web developer should be aware of. Priority 1 is essential - both from a user point of view, but also from a legal point of view (take a look at the DDA - disability discrimination act).

Having your website accessible also means you are more likely to have a cross browser compatible website (though of course its not guaranteed - so further checks will always be required). Also from a search engine point of view many of the items on the checklist are essential - and there isnt a lot of point in having your website if it wont be found by your target market!

you can find more details on the W3C website about the 'priority levels' for websites:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/full-checklist.html

If your website designer uses current technologies (CSS stylesheet based formatting and valid HTML / XHTML) then you should not have problems with accessibility and I would say that any web developer / designer should be adhering to these as a natural course of things - so additional charges should not apply.

1 January 2009
Making a site accessible has seemed to have taken a back burner with many designers in recent years, but I feel it is still important, as you want your site to be optimally viewed by everyone including those that are visually (or other) impaired. It takes a lot of time, effort and know-how to make a site accessible, hence the reason why your designer may charge you more to concentrate on this aspect. A good designer will always include accessibility within their designs, coding, programming, etc. but not every designer takes it into consideration. There are designers that focus solely on this aspect, so perhaps it might be in your best interest to hire a secondary designer that knows how to properly and efficiently make your website more accessible.

2 January 2009
Personally I put a great importance on accessibility but not at the cost of the client.

Being accessible means that users can view your web site even if they are blind with the help of a screen reader, if they can't use a mouse by using tab keys etc.

There is a big debate at the moment around this and any business who cares for it's customer should consider have their web site accessible.

It also brings a site in-line with the DDA guidelines which as soon to change to incorporate the WCAG.

12 January 2009
Hi James,

A web designer should never charge more for an accessible site.

If they are coding in web standards (as all quality designers should do) then the site will be automatically accessible.

Hope this is helpful,

Jordan Burnett
Purple Internet

11 June 2009
Depends on your intended audience. Although it would be ideal if every website was accessible to everyone, it's just not practical.

If your website was let's say related to health insurance or retirement your website better be accessible to the elderly who are more likely to need AAA conforming (http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AAA-Conformance) pages for their use.

If you're audience is young techies or gamers for example, you shouldn't need to worry about it so much. Also, do you need language translation on your site.

If you think you need a more accessible site, why don't you just refer your designer to this free and open source template that offers some of these features:

http://www.freewebplate.org/

and tell him to just copy and paste some things from there, they shouldn't charge you much to do that.

Good Luck!

Thanks, Bryan