Pat’s Point of View

I’ve written a new paper on practical accessibility, a follow up from my earlier introduction to accessibility article. Published by Step Two Designs.

There is a great deal of hype on this topic and a lot of discussion too, yet vagueness and confusion persist. Web teams face a considerable amount of political pressure to ’be compliant’, but often don’t know where to start. This can result in aggravation, misdirection of effort and ultimately a failure to make the website any more accessible.

Often what is needed is a pragmatic view based on real experience, to reveal what is really important and what should be tackled first.

This paper provides ten key tips to help improve the accessibility of any website, or intranet. It’s not intended to be an introduction to web accessibility nor is this intended to be an exhaustive manual covering every detail of every accessibility technique. Besides being counter-productive and far from helpful as a starting point, it is just not possible to do this. Best practice changes constantly and one must focus on the underlying approach rather than specific details.

I’ve just published a short paper entitled Introduction to Accessibility, intended as a practical entry point for Intranet managers and the like. This will soon be followed by a more in-depth paper on accessibility techniques.

P

I did enjoy reading a recent rant by Joe Clark regarding those who continue to ignore web-standards. Having spent many years working for digital agencies (ie: advertising agencies trying to make a quick buck from “this Internet thing”) I can testify that many high-profile, “big” websites are built with shockingly bad code. And it’s a shame.
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Just launched a new website for a client; Renault Retail Group (UK). Check it out at:

www.renaultretail.co.uk

It’s a nice pure XHTML (strict!) and CSS build. And it’s accessible too. It’s been a long haul, but I’m pleased with the finished product.

Like I said it’s quite accessible, and should work on all browsers from the last few years (including Mac). But (there’s always a but), do let me know if you find a bug :)

P