The WCAG contains many valuable strategies for opening your site’s doors as widely as possible. But they do not always map to common, real-world scenarios. Designers and developers often find themselves following the spirit of accessibility without adhering to every letter of the law, because at the end of the day, common sense will dictate what is in the best interest of your visitors. Some Priority Level 3 requirements are as easy and useful to implement as Level 1, just as some Level 1 requirements are nearly impossible to objectively quantify. For instance, checkpoint 14.1, required for Level 1 compliance—“Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site’s content”—is an area where many feel the W3C itself falls short. They might disagree, and how could you argue with them if they did? What quantifiable measuring sticks do web developers have to rate content? It’s important to dispel the myth that accessible sites must be ugly. Too many designers equate accessibility with all-text documents without visual formatting or decorative images. This could not be further from the truth. Ninety-nine percent of accessibility is achieved within the markup (the one notable exception being accommodating the visually impaired with wise color choices), so even the most beautiful sites can welcome all visitors. The bolt tightening and pipe cleaning that needs to be done under a corporate website’s hood is usually quite minimal. The value that a few pieces of additional markup brings to the table is enormous. If Target had put just a few extra hours of spit and polish into their HTML, they might have completely avoided a costly and widely publicized lawsuit. The rest of this chapter will explore some tactics for better real-world accessibility—changes that will directly benefit visitors without getting hung up on explicit WCAG compliance.   Read more

It is probably true that the majority of a corporation’s website visitors will have passable vision, no significant learning disabilities, and not suffer from epilepsy. It’s even common for businesses to think people with those inhibitions will never visit their site because “that’s not our target audience.” But remember that a target audience is not the only audience, and disabilities are more common than most believe (remember, about 32 million in the United States alone). Beyond designing for that significant slice of the population, there are many reasons to consider accessibility in a corporate web project.   Read more

While the design industry is slowly becoming more educated through the evangelism of Joe Clark1 and sites like Ian Lloyd’s Accessify,2 many web designers still incorrectly equate “disabled” with “blind.” While it is true that the Web plays host to a significant number of people with visual impairments, to slice the definition of disability so narrow is a disservice to the millions of users with other handicaps.   Read more

While there are many people reading this book interested in building a new company’s website, chances are there are just as many people looking to improve an old one. Redesigning can be a major undertaking. Depending on the magnitude, it can be as challenging as a brand new design. But listing the reasons for the revamp and the goals the site will accomplish, and then selling the whole idea to your management team, can help make your site better than ever. It can be assumed that any business that wishes to compete in the globalized world market has a website. The medium has been mature for over a decade. College dorm startups, old-world companies (think Ford or Coca-Cola), small businesses, and worldwide mega-corporations have all benefited from and praised the return on investment that a strong Internet presence brings.   Read more