I agree with Nick - although I would comment that many of us have had to
produce sites to W3C standards to meet funders' standards (ok, I'm thinking
of the NOF-Digi technical standards).
I notice that some people equate "accessibility" with "accessible to the
disabled." I think it's a lot broader than that. Those of us producing web
resources for public cultural organisations have some sort of (implied if
not clearly stated) duty to make them accessible to as many people as
possible, rather than choosing a specific audience. This means trying to
include people who can't afford to upgrade to the latest operating system,
the fastest processor or broadband. It means trying to give interesting
information written as clearly as possible and legible on-screen. It means
trying to allow for the fact that some people find words helpful to explain
images, and others would prefer not to have too many words and find images
more comprehensible. It means trying to make the navigation as easy to use
as possible so people don't spend lots of time working out how to get past
the title page or where on earth the menu is.
Attention to the fine detail of the coding is all very well but it is
perfectly possible to have a W3C validated site that is still not easy to
use or comprehend.
My favourite example of a badly-designed web site was the DCMS site - the
previous version with the day-glo stripes. It was the most
difficult-to-look-at UK government web site that I found. When I plucked up
courage to visit it recently because I needed some information, I actually
felt a bit disappointed that the vile stripes had disappeared!
Janet E. Davis
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