ACCESSIBILITY & SECURITY
Importance of accessibility
Accessible websites maximise usability by all visitors, including older people, those with disabilities, and those with older or slower technology. They also are viewable and compatible with all web browsers (Nielsen & Loranger, 2006; Morris, 2013). Accessibility is often measured by the level of compliance with the W3C guidelines (W3C, 1999).
Accessibility on this site
Features aiding this site’s accessibility include easily distinguishable and readable text, clear and descriptive navigation and links, the use of heading elements for each section of content, predictable page appearance, and alternative text for images.
Text alternative for images enables the image information to be changed into other forms, such as speech that can be read by a screen reader for visually impaired visitors, larger text or braille. Text alternative also aids visitors with lower bandwidth who have turned off images to speed download, or mobile device users who have turned off images to lower bandwidth costs. Text alternative is also available to technologies that cannot view the image, such as search engines (W3C, n.d.).
Planned accessibility upgrade
Upgraded accessibility will include:
- optional subtitles for video content, synchronised with the video, to aid visitors with hearing disabilities;
- making all functionality available from the keyboard, so that visitors are not reliant on using the mouse;
- links to enable visitors to skip the navigation bar and go directly to the main content area; and
- text size adjustment icons to assist the visually impaired.
Time and cost requirements of maximising accessibility include website author training, completing the upgrade, possible additional software requirements and site evaluation. These disadvantages are outweighed by advantages of increased accessibility for site visitors, easier site maintenance, and increased search engine optimisation.
Online payments and security upgrade
A site upgrade is planned to enable visitors to make online bookings and payment for classes. This will require us to collect information such as credit card numbers, expiration dates and billing addresses. To maximise protection of such data from unauthorised third parties, we will use Secure Socket Layers (SSL) to protect data and secure transactions. SSL, supported by most major browsers, encrypts all personal information, including credit card numbers, names and addresses, as it is transmitted over the Internet (Morris, 2013; Guenther, 2003). Another server will be used to host the site, as the CSU server does not support commercial websites (Charles Sturt University, n.d.). Although this will mean a change of URL, our name and services will continue uninterrupted. Our Privacy Policy will also be upgraded to reflect changes in the type of information collected and our upgraded security levels.
References
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