Web Accessibility

Web accessibility is the practice of making web sites available to people of all abilities and disabilities.

Web accessibility is important because is important because the more accessible a site is, more users can access the information contained in the site.

Accessibility can be improved in the following ways:
Correctly naming images to enable the use of text-to-speech software/ text-to-Braille hardware.
Making images and text enlargeable to accommodate visually impaired users.
Making active areas such as buttons and links larger to accommodate users who have difficulty using a mouse with precision.
Coding web pages so that they can be accessed by keyboard or a single switch device exclusively.
Close-captioning of videos, or a sign language equivalent makes multimedia available to the hearing impaired.
The use of plain language and instructional diagrams in informative websites provides ease of access to users with dyslexia or learning difficulties.
Ease of navigation and designing buttons and links to stand out also improves accessibility for all users.

http://www.samanzerin.com/ is an example of a website that is not considered accessible.The site has miniature navigation buttons, that are hidden in the texture of the background. These buttons also seem to link to random pages, rather than back and forward as most users would presume, considering the buttons are left/right arrows.
There is almost no text contained in the site, explaining what is going on, or even what the site is for.

http://www.questacon.edu.au/ is an example of a website that is easily accessible. With an easily accessible menu bar that features drop down menus with high contrast rollovers, a home page link that appears when you navigate to another page, it is impossible to become lost. On each of the sub pages, links to different information pages come complete with descriptors, explaining what is on the next page, saving time and effort required to find the desired information. The bright colours are designed to engage the target audience of school children