Who are we?
AnySurfer is a part of Solidarity in Sight, a non-profit organisation for the visually impaired with close connections to other associations who plead for the interests of the disabled.
We strive for a more accessible internet for all users, including those with a disability.
What does AnySurfer offer?
Every organisation, company or government can call in the AnySurfer team for an accessibility audit of their website. You will receive a report that describes all accessibility issues of your website, including screenshots, code examples and suggestions for improvement. Moreover, AnySurfer organises training sessions for web designers and web editors, and offers tailored consultancy services.
Websites that comply to the AnySurfer checklist are awarded with the AnySurfer label. Our checklist equals level A of the Web Accessibility Guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium.
Website builders with knowledge and experience in web accessibility are recognized as AnySurfer certified partners.
The importance of web accessibility
For the disabled, the growth of the internet shouldn't be another barrier for them to break. On the contrary.
What has changed:
- Nowadays, the blind and visually impaired can read the news online, bank independently, find a job and e-mail with people that are not able to read braille. For this, they use magnifying software or a refreshable braille display (a piece of hardware that displays the contents of the screen in braille format).
- The deaf and hearing disabled can participate in online discussion groups.
- And thanks to online stores, wheelchair users don't have to go out to do their shopping or to make a request at a community service.
Digital information is by nature far more accessible than printed or spoken material. This is why the internet holds a great potential to become the most valuable communication and information medium available for the visually impaired, for people who can't use their hands and for other people that use assistive technologies. However, this potential can only be efficacious when websites are built according to the guidelines for accessibility.
A grasp from the checklist
- Use the right HTML tags to structure your documents. By doing so, assistive technologies can translate headings, paragraphs, lists and tables to braille or speech in a comprehensible manner.
- Make sure that the website is also operable with a keyboard. In most situations, no special actions are required, except if - for instance - you use dropdown menus. This particular guideline is of great importance to visitors that are only able to use the keyboard.
- You can make your audio and video fragments accessible to visitors with an auditive or visual constraint by adding subtitles and offering a transcription.
- Never solely rely on colors to convey meaningfull information. The message ‘The fields in red are mandatory’ has no use for a blind person or someone who is colorblind.
- A refreshable braille display cannot display images. Therefore, you should add short descriptions for images and graphical buttons. They don't appear on the screen, but they do get picked up by the screenreader software used by the blind and visually impaired.
The complete and normative AnySurfer checklist is available in Dutch and french. There, you can also find code examples and solutions for common problems.
Contact us
- Our general e-mail address is info@anysurfer.be.
- During office hours you can call +32 (0) 2 210 61 49.
Address
Blindenzorg Licht en Liefde - AnySurfer
Kunstlaan 24 bus 21
1000 Brussel
Belgium