Why does accessibility matter?

[am0463]

I disagree here. I mean seriously 20% of websurfers cannot be inaccessible. I would go on to argue that there are not even 10% that cannot access these websites. If they are blind I mean really, I don't think they have much interest in the internet... If they just have troubles seeing there are different options with windows to make things bigger. Honestly it may also depend on your site. Like I mean a gaming site for halo or something, wouldn't need to be accessible. Anyways other than me being a little iffy on the facts you gave me I'm not to sure I will be making any great effort into making my site perfect for blind, and or bad site viewers. 20%?!?!?! I don't think even 20% of America is non-accessible to the internet.

[bcarl314]

One thing to keep in mind when you're talking about accessibility is that it does not mean a specific disability. There are very VERY common disabilities such as color blindness that effect anywhere between 12% and 20% of the population. Color blindness is probably the single most overlooked accessibility checkpoint.

Add to that a few percent of the population with physical disabilities, legal blindness, and other disabilities and I'm sure you'll realize that 20% of the population does, in fact, have a disability that can potentially stop them from accessing content on a site.

Making a site accessible means that everyone, regardless of device they're using, will be able to access the content. Making a site with a red-green or yellow-blue (the most common color blindness types) color scheme makes them dependent on a device that can read the screen content, or other device because they may not be able to read the content themselves.