Today is also Blog against Disablism Day. (Disablism is discrimination against people with diabilities.)Accessibility is one of my top priorities in web development. It's important to me that everyone be able to access all of the information we put online. I try to provide alternate text for visual and aural information and for technology like JavaScript and Flash which can also be difficult to make accessible.
However, it's often an awkward discussion to bring up. I think that's because everyone agrees that accessibility is the right thing to do, but they almost never factor it in to their initial plan. Should I use the tools I'm supposed to and stick to the project plans, but end up with final products that aren't as accessible as I think they should be? If we assume there isn't a problem because no one has ever complained, are we being realistic or unethical?
I push for accessibility, and, as a web developer, I would welcome comments that would let me know and share actual problems that people have had with accessing information on the sites I work on.
David Nielsen
May 2, 2008 2:36 PM
From http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/stop-using-ajax/ :
"one comment in particular stood out as symptomatic of an attitude I come across time and time again:
"I am very much in favour of making the web more accessible to everyone, but ..."
As I said in that thread, to be "very much in favour" is a cop-out if you're not prepared to follow that through to its conclusion; it only pays lip-service to the idea of accessibility, without being prepared to do what it actually takes. I stewed on that thought for a few days, and eventually followed it up with a rant on my own site: Technology is the last, best hope for accessibility."