Suski Web Design Unveils Grand Blanc Chamber's "Accessibility Makeover"

Makeovers are all the rage - from making over a person's appearance to making over a landscape. The Grand Blanc Chamber of Commerce's website can even lay claim to an "Accessibility Makeover".

What's that, you may wonder. According to Mary Suski of Suski Web Design, "Not only was the look of the site redone to complement the Chamber's marketing materials, but just as important, the underlying markup was upgraded to help everyone, including people with disabilities, take advantage of the rich content present on the Chamber's website."

That meant optimizing current images and creating new images with reasonable download times, modifying scripts to work well with special adaptive devices, and rewriting the underlying markup to more closely follow web standards. Established accessibility guidelines were used to the extent that they are currently well supported by web browsers, and provide for a similar visual presentation across various web browsers.

Accessible web design is about including features that give website visitors more control over the way they get or communicate information.

• Type size too big or too small? Change it.
• Prefer to read short sentences on a screen? Resize the browser window - the site is "liquid" and easily adapts.
• Have trouble using a mouse? Navigate the site with your keyboard.

Those are just a few examples.

Accessible, universal web design is also about including features that give website visitors options. Take the Chamber's newsletters, for example. A PDF (portable document format) version displays a newsletter on a computer screen exactly the same way that it does in print. An additional text-only version benefits people who use assistive technologies such as screen readers. People with slow internet connections who may not want to wait for a large PDF file, as well as people who would rather not install the program needed to view the PDF files, appreciate that they can still get the newsletter content. A super added bonus of the additional text version is that it helps the newsletter's content get picked up by search engines - an important resource for driving traffic to a website.

That's right, an accessible website can even contribute to the bottom line for a business. It improves the site's reach by accommodating a larger potential audience than a site that ignores accessibility principles. A positive browsing experience on your site is also a way to provide good customer service. A business can save money on website rebuilds - a well-structured site is much more likely to work in emerging web browsers than a site with dated or proprietary markup.

To learn more about the benefits and "how-to's" of accessible web design, check out the Accessibility Policy link on the Grand Blanc Chamber's website. An Accessibility Technical Notes page details the specific guidelines that websites can follow to maximize their accessibility for all, using the Chamber's site as an example.

According to Joyce Thewalt, President of the Grand Blanc Chamber of Commerce, "Because of the accessibility makeover, the Chamber's site is much more user friendly for all. We look to see other chambers and organizations jump on board."

Members of the Grand Blanc Chamber of Commerce saw their new site in action at the June 6 Chamber breakfast meeting. Luke Zelley of The Disability Network in Flint operated the Chamber's updated site through voice output. Scott Zoumbaris of MicroNet showed the site on a PDA (personal digital assistant). Mary Suski of Suski Web Design demonstrated accessible features of the Chamber's site on a laptop computer.

For more information on web content accessibility, visit Suski Web Design's Accessibility section.