How to improve web site accessibility and capture new business

1
"How to improve web site accessibility and
capture new business"

• Christian Heilmann,
• Lead Front End Developer
• Netdecisions
• February 2004

2
Why accessibility?

• Possible legal necessity
• Easier maintenance and rebranding of the product
• The blind millionaire

3
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

4
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)
5
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

6
Questions? Material?

• Contact me via email on christian.heilmann_at_netdeci
  sions.com