Inclusive Web Design at Flaming Creations
Related: Flaming Creations, Web Site Design, Huddersfield, Web Development, Design, XHTML, CSS, PHP, W3C, Accessibility, WAI, Bobby.
What is "inclusive design"?
Inclusive Design is neither a new genre of design, nor a separate specialism. It is a general approach to designing in which designers ensure that their products and services address the needs of the widest possible audience, irrespective of age or ability. Two major trends have driven the growth of Inclusive Design - an ageing population and the growing movement to integrate disabled people into mainstream society.
We specialise in inclusive, fully accessible, user-friendly web sites. All our sites not only meet current WAI [Web Accessibility Initiative] "AAA" standard, they are built to an even higher standard - taking into account everything missed by these standards. We only use W3C valid semantic mark-up. This ensures sites are future proof and work on as many browsers and devices as possible.
A site that is well designed today will last for years, and in some cases may never need touching again [certainly on the design side], only changes to the content itself would result in you having to think about the site again.
We offer all sites with the option to change basic information such as contact details and staff details - the type that does inevitably change over time at NO cost to you. For those that wish to update their site on a regular basis, we offer various update packages to suit your needs on smaller sites, and for larger sites the ability to update them your self can be built in [we can of course arrange to keep your large site up to date for you, allowing you to concentrate on your business]. No job is too big or too small , we can even install a blog for you - either with an open source ready made theme or one created just for you.
We now build all our sites based on CSS [Cascading Style Sheets] layouts rather than the outdated table method used by many other design firms. This reduces the file size of pages [by around 40-60%] resulting in faster downloads and reduced bandwidth use. They also have the advantage of allowing quick and easy site wide design changes, which reduce future maintenance costs.
Some examples of web sites designed by Flaming Creations
What happens if your site isn't accessible?
Well at the moment the worst you’re likely to find it doesn't work on some devices and looks terrible in some less common browsers [other than Internet Explorer] - meaning many users have real difficulty using your site, some won't be able to use it. This in turn will result in less people being able to use your business. At the moment research shows us 10% of people have some form of disability in the UK, a figure set to potentially rise to 40% with the increase in the elderly population in coming years. Many people with disabilities can’t shop online for example, with a combined estimated spending power of £40-50 billion, disabled people have the ability to make a large impact online, not to mention the referrals you will get from the friends and family as a result.
Consequences of inaccessibility
The Sydney Olympics Organising Committee were fined $20,000 for their inaccessible site, but the legal costs and subsequent web development bill ran into millions. AOL settled out of court in an action brought by the US National Federation of the Blind but they continue to be haunted by bad publicity from this case. In February 2003 the Guardian newspaper slated Abbey National PLC for the their poor design and inaccessible web services. Many more will no doubt be named soon. Accessibility is not just about serving groups of disabled users: the same standards also enable web-access by phone and PDA. The extra cost of accessibility in new sites is negligible, large sites that have serious errors can be expensive to put right later, so get it right now.
We are also available on a freelance basis to work with your existing in house web development team to bring your site up to scratch.
