Choosing an accessible CMS

7 May 2009
Accessibility is been an important area of web design but in the last few years it has become more prominent as designers seek to improve the quality of the constructed website. This article points out some of the most important issues

Accessibility is been an important area of web design but in the last few years it has become more prominent as designers seek to improve the quality of the constructed website. By making your website accessible you are increasing the number of people who won’t have any problems while visiting your site and hopefully leading to a larger number of people using your services or purchasing your products.

When we look at a website build by a CMS there are many things to bear in mind. Here are a few that I use when building a site.

a) The website HTML and CSS first and foremost has to be valid. This is quite easy to check using the tools available at the W3 website. Also make sure that all, if not the majority of the design and style is contained within the style sheet while structural tags are contained within the html code.
b) Make sure the document is structured properly so that when style sheets are turned off then the site content is rendered in a way that it is readable and flows down the page.
c) Forms have to be valid, this means that labels have to be associated with the relevant form controls, this can be checked by clicking on the label and the cursor should be active within the relevant field.
d) Provide meta data for each page in the site. The title tag is invaluable to a user using a voice or text-based browser that helps the user keep track of his or her location. Make sure all the title tags are as unique as you can create them.
e) Keep popup windows to a minimum although I would recommend that external websites are open in new windows
f) The navigation should be consistent throughout most if not all of the site and the navigation should be marked up with HTML list elements.
g) Make sure the screen doesn’t flicker to any extent. Flickering images may cause some people to have an epileptic fit or cause convulsions.
h) Tables should have headers in the right places, this enables website visitors to understand the data the columns and rows contain.
i) Make sure JavaScript is only used to enhance the site’s functionality and usability. If JavaScript is used and there is no alternative in place then the site’s functionality will most likely break down.
j) Make sure all images, files and objects have a text alternative. Many people may not have the correct version of Flash installed or images may be disabled. Providing a text alternative is good practice to make sure that users can access this content.
k) Make sure the colours on the website aren’t a problem for users who are colour-blind. Avoid certain colour combinations and make sure the contrast of the text to background is high.
l) Provide shortcuts to skip over navigation links to get straight to the content. It is annoying to users who have to keep tabbing through every link to get to the main content on each page.
m) Provide a breadcrumbs trail on the page so that the user is aware of exactly what section they are on when browsing your website.
n) Provide a low graphics version of the site so that users on smaller resolutions and smaller handheld devices can view the site without having to scroll horizontally.

This is only a small list of everything that needs to be done in order to make a site accessible. Not only this but when you are dealing with a content management solution then it makes life harder because of all the possibilities and combinations of content that can be added via the CMS administration panel. It isn’t something that many developers get right but it is something to bear in mind if you are looking at different CMS solutions.