Accessibility

Alternate Text
All images on the Perfect Pets website are supported by alternate text descriptions. This information allows images to be interpreted and read aloud by a screen reader, which may be used by visitors with a visual impairment (Felke-Morris, 2012, p. 204). It also benefits users with a low Internet connection speed, who may have images turned off during browsing (Potts, 2007, p. 57).

Accessiblity Upgrade
We aim to make this website accessible to all members of the community. This is why we have planned several upgrades to the site, which will be implemented over the next 6 months. Firstly we will be extending the alternate text descriptions to video and audio material. Captions will be provided to describe video content to visitors with hearing and vision difficulties. Once again, this will also help customers with a slower Internet connection speed (Felke-Morris, 2012, p. 474).

We will also be introducing easy to use links to increase the font size of the text and assist visitors with visual impairment (McManus, 2011, p. 18). The links will be offered on every page and will consist of three letter A's increasing in size.

We will be adding access keys to assist visitors who have difficulty using a mouse to navigate the site. 'An access key is attached to each navigation item and identified in the title of the link' (Potts, 2007, p. 52). Simple key commands such as 1, 2, and 3 will correspond to navigation links and allow the user to move around the site with ease.

Security Upgrade
Next month Perfect Pets will be introducing an online payment option for our customers. We are, however, extremely aware of security risks which exist, both for our customers and us, when conducting online financial transactions. This includes questions regarding the privacy of our customers personal information. That's why Perfect Pets has chosen to accept payments using PayPal. Whilst this does incur some cost to Perfect Pets, it provides added security for our customers. PayPal does not share your financial information with us and protects your privacy using advanced encyption technology. Encryption is 'the conversion of data into an unreadable form, called a ciphertext (which) cannot be easily understood by unauthorized individuals' (Felke-Morris, 2012, p. 493). The system is easy to install. PayPal provides the html code that we simply copy and paste into our website for the payment service to be up and running (Felke-Morris, 2012, p. 500).

References

Felke-Morris, T (2012) Web Development & Design Foundations with HTML5 (6th ed.). Boston, USA: Pearson

McManus, S (2011) Web Design in Easy Steps (5th ed.). Southam, UK: In Easy Steps

Potts, K (2007) Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites. USA: Friendsofed