I witnessed something happen on a web developer mailing list the other day which I'm not proud of, but which is all too common in our industry. A group of experienced users rounded on a group of less experienced users for making a simple error, and then proceeded to put them down in public for their "stupidity and laziness" in not learning the system.
There has been an "interesting story":http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6231137.stm circulating in the press today about food labelling. The government are trying to encourage food manufacturers to label food in such a way that shoppers can clearly tell which of a number of similar products are healthiest just by glancing at them.
The food standards agency realised that the current labelling system—while very good by international standards—is still quite complicated. If you want choose between two products for health reasons, you need to spend a considerable amount to time looking at the two labels, and even then it is difficult to tell which is better unless you know exactly how much salt, fat or sugar you are supposed to eat each day
About 6 months ago I was running a workshop in the north of England and wanted to buy a return train ticket. I tried to book tickets using thetrainline.com but it was such a nightmare I swore never to use them again. Sadly I didn't learn from my mistakes and 6 months later I'm back at their site desperate to part with my money and being thwarted at every turn.
I was recently interviewed for an article on accessibility in this month’s ".Net magazine":http://www.netmag.co.uk/. Here is what I had to say: 1: Why are so many sites still inaccessible? There is still a large amount of ambivalence regarding web accessibility, from both developers and clients. Many clients are either unaware that the disability discrimination act covers them, or simply don’t care. However, it is not really the clients fault. It is the responsibility of the web development profession to educate clients about their legal responsibilities and build accessibility into their projects, whether specified or not. Unfortunately, due to the increased commoditization of web design, budgets continue to fall and accessibility is often one of the first areas to be affected.
Most mature industries have pretty fixed job titles and roles. Take the construction industry for instance. You've got Architects, Engineers and Draftsmen. You've got Electricians and Carpenters, Bricklayers and Plumbers, Foremen and Site Inspectors. Each one has a defined role and if you met one down the pub, you'd have a pretty good idea what their job entailed. The movie industry is the same. Every film will have a Director and a Cinematographer. There will be Producers, Actors, Special Effects people and Stuntmen. Each person knows roughly what the other does and how all the roles fit together to produce a great – or not so great – movie.
Until recently, few businesses had given much thought to the topic of Web Accessibility. However thanks to the tireless work of organisations like the RNIB, this is starting to change. In this article I hope to give a brief outline about exactly what web accessibility is, and then explain how building an accessible website can have a positive impact on your business, both in terms of PR and ROI.