Jim Byrne Accessible Web Design

20/06/2024

ALISS in Wowland – Byres Road Community Hub. Community Drop In every Friday. 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. This coming Friday, 21st June, I'll be the guest at the Community Spotlight talking about Pat's Guide to Glasgow's West End – how the website started and how it has developed. The popularity and reach of the website has been, in part, due to how the site has complied with web accessibility guidelines so Jim will give a short talk on this topic.

04/04/2024

My newly designed website is live today: https://jimbyrne.co.uk

Accessibility Testing and Accessible Website Design, UK

My aim is to help you make your content accessible to your widest possible audience. To ensure you are treating each of your visitors equally, in compliance with the Equality Act 2010.

WCAG 2.1 and WCAG 2.2. Accessibility Auditing, Consultancy & Website Design

26/02/2024

Today the 1000th student enrolled in my online training course, 'Web Accessibility Training Course WCAG 2.1 & 2.2 Compliance'. :-)

To celebrate I've created a $9.99 coupon. Unlimited enrollments for the next 5 days:

http://tinyurl.com/y4xht2kb

Unlimited enrolments coupon code: WCAG2ACCSSBLEWDESIGN

17/04/2023

This year is the 20th birthday of my business, Jim Byrne Accessible Website Design. :-)

Here is the press release I put together with Rebecca Appleton of Dakota Digital. Forgive my hyperbole - but 20 years of helping to ensure equal access for disabled people to digital content is definitely worth celebrating. :-)

Multi Award-Winning Accessible Website Design Business Celebrates 20th Years At The Top

Jim Byrne, a pioneer of equal access to websites and digital content for disabled people, is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his Accessible Website Design & Accessibility Auditing business - and remains as passionate about his mission today as he was on day one.

Jim first realised the importance of digital access for disabled people in the 90s, and that realisation forever changed his career path. In 1996 he founded one of the UK’s first web accessibility consultancies and was a founding member of the Guild of Accessible Web Designers (GAWDS). As the director of GAWDS, he gave feedback on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2) which are now used by governments around the world.

“Equal access to websites and digital content for everyone is still my focus,” Jim says. “Lack of accessibility is a form of discrimination against disabled people. It was unacceptable back when I started and, with so many services and resources almost exclusively available online, it is unacceptable now.”

The importance of digital accessibility has grown since Jim Byrne began his work and UK law has changed to reflect this. Under the Equality Act of 2010, website owners are obliged to ensure that their websites are accessible to all users. To help with this, Jim’s business offers a WCAG 2 accessibility auditing service to check whether websites comply with the law. Additionally, he offers an accessible website design service and accessibility training for website designers.

Ralph Mackenzie, Front-End Website Designer/Developer for the University of Strathclyde, said, “Jim provided us with auditing and training services to help the University’s websites and applications meet new government regulations on digital accessibility. His reports were extremely thorough and have provided an excellent basis for the University to offer better services to students, staff and the public.
“The training offered gave our staff an excellent insight into designing and developing for users with special requirements, and we look forward to providing an accessible digital experience to all users thanks to Jim’s help and expertise.”

Through its two decades of activity, Jim Byrne Accessible Website Design & Accessibility Auditing has received several awards - including the Global Bangemann Award, presented by the King of Sweden himself.

For more information, visit jimbyrne.co.uk

Get in touch if you want to chat. :-)
Jim

15/06/2022

Web Accessibility Training Course - WCAG 2.1 Compliance - on sale now.

My bestseller website accessibility training course: https://tinyurl.com/3arz4k54

Learn to design accessible websites - from multi-award winning web designer Jim Byrne

10/06/2022

I've added a new post to my website accessibility blog:

Website accessibility tools – Are they actually helpful or just a PR exercise?

Specific tools are now available to make sites more accessible for people with sight impairments, motor impairments, seizures, hearing impairments, and cognitive disabilities. The promise is, that with the right plug-ins, the internet can be a more egalitarian and accessible place...

As the world shifts increasingly online, the ability to access apps, websites, and documents is crucial. That’s why website accessibility tools, often in the form of plug-ins, are more popular than ever. Specific tools are now available to make sites more accessible for people with sight impairmen...

07/04/2022

I've just uploaded a new video tutorial to my accessible website design course. :-)

It shows you how to:

* Edit the video captions file that YouTube creates automatically.

* Manually add and edit video captions from scratch.

* Upload an existing transcript and let YouTube match to your video audio.

* Upload or download the captions file.

Even if you are hosting your videos on another platform - this will be useful. It can save you a lot of time because you can download the result captions file and convert them to whatever format you need.

It is lecture 27: Check it now and get back to me with any feedback you have. :-)

I've also uploaded a PDF - attached as a resource to this lecture - that describes the techniques.

Learn to design accessible websites - from multi-award winning web designer Jim Byrne

13/09/2021

Screen reader users John Turley, talks about the things he finds most irritating when browsing the web.

13/09/2021

Screen reader users John Turley, talks about the things he finds most irritating when browsing the web.

I chatted with John Turley for my Udemy course, Web Accessibility Training Course - WCAG 2.1 Compliance: https://www.udemy.com/course/web-accessibility-train...