Accessibility

At Ben Cardy Web Design, Portsmouth, we believe that making a website accessible to all users is paramount. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) have progressively developed a set of standards that define the back bone of internet code, that enable the websites that follow these standards to deliver their content effectively to all users, whether they are viewing your website on an older/less common browser (which may not know how to correctly display your website), or whether they have disabilities such as visual impairment.

We achieve accessibility by utilising the following concepts:

Valid Code

Code that validates is essential to an accessible website. But what is this Valid code? Valid code is code that conforms to the specification set by the W3C. They have set down definitions of HTML and XHTML that set out the rules that the code should follow. Valid code makes it much easier for search engines to find your website, and also means that people with disabilities, such as visual impairment, who are traversing your website with screen readers, will be more likely to be able to understand. Screen Readers rely on the structure of the HTML code to make sense of the document, and without sensible structure (as defined by the W3C), the readers will struggle. Valid code also helps to ensure that your website looks the same to all users. Although the most popular browser on the market is Microsoft Internet Explorer, many users prefer other web browsers, such as Opera, FireFox and Safari. Every browser renders HTML code in a slightly different way, and using valid code will ensure that your website looks as similar as possible in all browsers.

Simple Navigation

Navigation is an key part of any website. At Ben Cardy Web Design, Portsmouth, we believe that simple navigation can mean the difference between someone staying to visit your site and someone leaving. For example, if someone finds your website in a search engine such as Google, but is unable to work out how to actually navigate their way around your site, they are very likely to leave. We believe that navigation is essential, and incorporate it into our websites not just as a necessity, but as a key feature of the design, while still maintaining structure and simplicity.

Search Engine Optimisation

It’s not just your usual visitors that we are concerned about. Search Engines use advanced techniques to ‘spider’ or ‘crawl’ websites, gathering information to display in their results. Valid code and simple navigation help provide the Search Engine with a foothold on your website, making it much easier for them to navigate around and access your content. Valid, accessible websites are much more inviting to Search Engine than those with hardly any navigation and poorly written code.