"how to improve web site accessibility and capture new business" christian heilmann, lead...
TRANSCRIPT
"How to improve web site accessibility and capture
new business"
Christian Heilmann,Lead Front End Developer
NetdecisionsFebruary 2004
Why accessibility?
Possible legal necessity Easier maintenance and rebranding of
the product The “blind millionaire”
How to introduce accessibility?
Raise disability awareness throughout the project - designers, developers and sales force.
Raise client awareness from the start Separation of Markup, CSS and
Scripting Testing, testing, testing
The multi level approach Create the design, identify the
components Start the markup, ensure the site is
usable without any Scripting or CSS Add the CSS layer to make the site
look as it should be Separate the finished (x)HTML
document into "components" Add the backend functionality to re-
assemble these components. Add a Javascript layer to enhance
usability
If your web page were a movie, XHTML would be the screenwriter, CSS would be the art director, scripting languages would be the special effects…(Jeffrey Zeldman)
What are the problems we are facing right now? Current web design aesthetics are print design
driven (multicolumn layouts, fixed sizes) Web development is considered graphic work
rather than document design Browsers and Screen Reader technology
implementation is still dodgy Content Management Systems, WYSIWYG
editors and backends create invalid, non-maintainable code
Accessibility myths
