Building a Website for the Disabled

Questions on doing this and maintaining attractive site

[TammyJo]

I will be helping someone with a site that needs to be accessible to the disabled, but also need to keep it attractive looking for other visitors.

Has anyone done this or have advise on the best way to go about this?

Thanks!

[D_Blackwell]

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is a really good place to start. There's no reason that a site can't be 'accessible', functional, and still look great.

WAI [w3.org]

You'll certainly have to define what you are willing to accommodate under the generic heading 'disabled'. There must be a thousand flavors, and everyone thinks that theirs is special.

[le_gber]

Is the website aimed at a certain audience? Blind, hard of hearing, dyslexic ...

People with visual disabilities won't use the same browser as people with hearing disabilities - so if you are targetting a particular population you can cater for their specific needs.

Try googling for:

dive into accessibility it should give you the answers to what people with different disabilities will 'need' in order to enjoy browsing your site.

Then it's a question of using XHTML and CSS and any other 'tools' at your disposal to design the website.

Hope this helps.

[TammyJo]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll start taking a look

It is for a conference center that hosts retreats for physically handicapped/disabled people so I'm thinking is will need to accomodate both vision & physically impaired.

I'm also going to check into the actual software they would use since this may give me another idea.

He wants it accessible, but to look professional for those that visit such as corporate sponsors and those making donations.

Thanks so much!