About AnySurfer
AnySurfer is a Belgian quality mark for accessible websites. Sites that carry the label, comply with a carefully crafted set of guidelines: the AnySurfer checklist. They are accessible to everyone — including visitors 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. Moreover, AnySurfer organises training sessions for web designers and web editors, and offers tailored consultancy services.
Who are we?
AnySurfer is a part of Licht en Liefde, a non-profit organization for the visually impaired. We have close connections to other associations who plead for the interests of the disabled: K-Point, Wablieft, The Information Society disAbilities Challenge, WAI-NOT and the Federacy of Flemish Organisations for the Deaf.
But our most important allies are the disabled internet users themselves. Being experts by experience, they are essential to our project. They're involved with the audits, the user tests and the training programs. They decide on the future of the project.
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 (1) or a refreshable braille display (2).
- The deaf and hearing disabled can participate in online discussion groups and make phone calls through the Teletolk service of the Flemish government.
- 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.
Notes
- Magnifying software enlarges texts, buttons and menus on a computer screen up to 64 times the original size
- A refreshable braille display is a piece of hardware that displays the contents of the screen in braille format
A grasp from the guidelines
- 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 without using the mouse. 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 or by offering a transcription.
- Never solely rely on colors to convey structural information. The message ‘The fields in red are mandatory’ has no use for a blind person or someone who's 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 use of technologies like Flash and JavaScript should be well-considered. Moreover, heavy animations and flickering are very disturbing for people who suffer from dyslexia or epilepsy.
The complete and normative checklist can be found on www.anysurfer.be/nl/richtlijnen (dutch version) or www.anysurfer.be/fr/directives (french version). There, you can also find code examples and solutions for common problems.
Note: we do have an English translation of the Guidelines document (PDF, 1,4 MB) that has been last updated on January 5th, 2009. This translation is the result of a voluntary effort and has no official status. Although all checkpoints have been translated (including the 'Plus' checkpoints), please bear in mind that the information and examples provided in this document may differ somewhat from the official documentation (available in Dutch and French only). We try our best to keep this document up to date.
AnySurfer on the internet
Our website provides you with the guidelines, information concerning the application procedure, prices and an overview of our services: www.anysurfer.be.
Technical issues and other philosophical matters can be found at our blog: blog.anysurfer.be.
A newsletter covers news on accessibility, tips and tricks for web designers and a review of recently labeled websites. Subscribe at www.anysurfer.be/nl/nieuwsbrief.
Contact us
- Our general e-mail address is info@anysurfer.be.
- During office hours you can call +32 (0) 16-73 52 40 (Leuven, Dutch, French or English speakers) or +32 (0) 9-225 95 29 (Gent, Dutch or English speakers).
Address
Blindenzorg Licht en Liefde - AnySurfer
Ernest Solvaystraat 77
3010 Kessel-Lo