Your business's website needs to have a wide appeal, so as not to limit your customer base. But it shouldn't be sufficient merely to find what appeals to people, what can persuade them to favour your company. There are also more practical issues that you must always keep in mind when designing and maintaining a website for your business. Visitors to your site may have visual, auditory, motor and other disabilities; it's essential to ensure that your site is available to everyone, whatever their requirements. What's more, this isn't just a question of ensuring your company can reach every client and customer: in some countries, including the UK, US, Ireland and Australia, there exist legal obligations to requiring these provisions to be made.

Such provisions are grouped under the umbrella of Web Accessibility, and have been developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to encourage websites to be inclusive and usable by visitors of all abilities and disabilities. The W3C is also aware, however, that there is a need for website construction to be an inclusive process, not to overcomplicate it and leave it in the hands of an expert few. Their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are intended to fulfil both needs, and Adobe Dreamweaver can help you to construct a site that adheres to these standards.

Perceivable

The WCAG is divided into four key principles; the first of these is that all content ought to be perceivable, that all elements of the page 'must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive'.

Images are integral to almost all websites, but it would be wrong to assume that everyone will see and experience them as you'd intend. Some users may have difficulty distinguishing colours or details, or may have images disabled in their browsers for technical reasons; others may use a screen reader to describe the contents audibly.

In these cases, relying on images alone would prevent many people from accessing your site, so it's important to take steps to address the issue: this doesn't mean avoiding the use of images, but providing alternative text to describe every image on the site, favouring images that are clear and not putting key information exclusively in a logo or image text. It's also essential to ensure that plain text is highly readable, with uncomplicated fonts, a high-contrast choice of colours, and no clashing between the text and background images.

Operable

The second principle is operability: users mustn't be prevented from or face difficulty in operating any components of the site. The WCAG requires that all users can access all aspects of a site through keyboard navigation alone - supporting those whose motor skills might make using a mouse problematic; that everyone has enough time to navigate through and read the content; and that navigation is clear and comprehensible, with visitors always aware of their position within the structure of the site. Animated or blinking content that might potentially cause seizures, particularly flashes that occur three times or more per second, should also be avoided.

Understandable

Third comes a requirement that content be understandable. Ideally, multiple versions of the text would be available in different languages if there is any likelihood of users from different countries or cultures visiting the site (and for public services, this may often be a requirement); however, for many businesses, this isn't realistic. Yet the language used shouldn't be too complicated for the audience to understand, particularly if you expect visitors who don't have specific technical knowledge, and it's worth providing explanations of abbreviations, special terminology or jargon. In addition, you can help ensure that your site is understandable by providing navigation tools that are consistent and would be familiar from other sites.

Robust

The final WCAG requirement is that any element of a site is sufficiently robust 'that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies'. It's critical that all the coding is neat and tidy, not missing any characters or with unnecessary or poorly arranged tags. The browser you use might be able to interpret the code correctly, but you must never assume that all visitors to your site will be in the same position; assistive technologies and older browsers may both struggle with imperfect code, as potentially might future software. Your website should remain accessible in all circumstances.

Making the job easier

The guidelines give you a lot to bear in mind. Many of the principles are broad statements on the overall design of your site, such as the language or the colours that you use. However, in ensuring that your site also fulfils the technical demands - correct code, alternative text for images, operability - Dreamweaver can be a great help.

If you're entering the code manually, then the software will check that all the data you input is up to standard; alternatively, if you're creating the site visually, you can rely on Dreamweaver to create code that adheres fully to accessibility guidelines.

Whenever you use content that requires further data to make it accessible, Dreamweaver will prompt you to enter the relevant details - for instance, with every image or video that you insert, the program asks for alternative text to assist those unable to benefit from the original content. The software can also preview your website using different browser technologies, helping you to ensure that there are no technical obstacles to full accessibility.

And Dreamweaver is itself also accessible. Just as sites need to be able to be fully understood with a screen reader, so all aspects of Dreamweaver can be read that way; where all elements of webpages must be able to be reached without a mouse, so the same is true of the Dreamweaver workspace. The software also supports all of the accessibility features provided by the Windows and Mac operating systems.

Promoting accessibility for your website may or may not be a legal requirement, depending on your location and the purpose of the site. However, it should always be seen as necessary, regardless of whether the law demands it: restricting access to your site restricts your access to many potential customers and clients. Fortunately, using Dreamweaver can help guide you along the way, and offer assistance with the more technical aspects of accessibility - and a short training course can help you or your staff get to grips with both the software and the requirements of the W3C. Adapting to the WCAG principles of accessibility is good for visitors to your site, good for your company, and a real boost to your future.