Letters

If you have come across a site that is inaccessible, and you want to let them know of the importance of accessibility for a web site, and ask them to make efforts to make their site accessible to all, it is a good idea to send the webmaster of the site a message expressing this. Although many sites ignore such letters, there are also many that are receptive to visitor complaints and they may make their site accessible if they receive enough requests.

In fact, many sites claim that they don't make their pages more accessible because they don't think their visitors need them to be, and quote lack of complaints as their reason. Make sure that sites you visit know it's important to be accessible by everyone. Don't let ignorance be their excuse. You may want to encourage them to visit the W3C's Web Accessibility Standards at: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/ for information on how to make their sites more accessible.

Below are some example letters that have been sent by participants in the campaign, that you can modify for your own use when you notify sites that they're inaccessible and that you want them to fix it. If you have any example letters that you think should be listed here, please let me know.

For more guidance on how to contact websites about accessibility issues, see WAI's Contacting Organizations about Inaccessible Websites.

Letter Courtesy of Bryony Lake

Dear web administrator,

Thank you for providing your website.  I am ,
and I have found your site to be a wonderful resource for interesting
articles of just the type I am looking for.  Unfortunately, I am unable
to recommend your site to a lot of my friends due to the use of
graphics-only links in it.

Many of my friends use browsers such as Lynx, which does not support the
use of graphics.  It is a text-only browser. Upgrading software is not
an option for many users.

Limiting your site by making it "best viewed by Netscape and/or Internet
Explorer" severely restricts the ability of people who do not or can not
use those particular web browsers.

You have obviously spent a lot of time and thought in designing and
creating your site.  It is a shame that your work is unavailable to so
many people.  It is frustrating to know that your site could be greatly
improved providing text-based alternatives to the graphics.  The HTML
tag that I myself use in writing my websites is:


<IMG SRC="[name of graphic].jpg" ALT="[alternative text is inserted
here]">


I really recommend reading the W3C Web Accessibility Standards at:
https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/

Otherwise, many thanks for a really informative website.


More Example Letters: