In a recent post, Bruce Lawson, a member of the Accessibility Task Force and notable funny-guy, gives the following pointers on accessibility:
- Accessibility is not text-only or a separate “cripples-only†site
- Disability is more than blindness
- Accessibility is not an exercise in political correctness; there are demonstrable, measurable advantages in usability for all
- Accessibility isn’t a purely technical matter; it’s to do with content as well (and is thus also the reponsibility of the non-techy people in the organisation who produce content).
He also points out Legal & General as an example of a corporate web site that is both fashionable and accessible.
In a wonderful display of irony, Bruce’s contribution to the CSS Zen Garden project (a project revolving around beautiful, usable and accessible web site design) had me laughing out loud with a call back to Geocities personal home pages circa 1996. In this case, ugly is only skin deep :)
* This post was originally published on September 15, 2006 at http://www.csb7.com/blogs/whyblogwhy/2006/09/15/quick_points_on_accessibilty