Here is my contribution:

Making content available to as many people as possible as often as possible on as many devices as possible in as many situations as possible.

I have referenced “content” in my snippet because building Web sites is my bread and butter. I need to make sure people can get to the information on my Web sites no matter what their physical abilities are, what device they are using to access the Internet, or what their immediate situation is.

However, “content” can be replaced with pretty much anything. The point of accessibility is to anticipate and accommodate as much as possible whatever elements are affecting an individual’s ability to access what they need. It could be adding a ramp to a curb so a person who has trouble walking can get from the sidewalk to the street. Maybe the person is paralyzed or has weak leg muscles and can’t step up very high (ability). Maybe he is in a wheelchair, on crutches, or even on rollerskates (device). Maybe he is walking around just fine, but he’s carrying a stack of books so high he can’t see what’s in front of him, or he is pushing a baby in a stroller, or he’s texting while walking and doesn’t notice the curb (situational).

The ramp helps a lot of different people in a lot of different situations. It’s not just about the so-called “disabled” people, not just about wheelchairs, not just about making things convenient for a small group. Applying accessibility practices to the design of all types of things (we often call this “universal design”) can makes things better and easier for everyone.

Stay tuned for the haiku version, folks!

It’s a common objection to Web accessibility. The company decision makers understandably want to conserve cash and labor-hours. The idea of taking extra measures for the sake of a small subset of people seems like a nice-to-have “feature.”

I’ll save the argument that building accessibility into the development cycle saves time and money in both the short-term and long-term for another day. I won’t mention that 50 million disabled Americans is not a “small subset.” I will refrain from telling you that our nation’s population is graying rapidly, which means ever more declining eyesight and motor abilities in our Web visitors. I won’t even burden you with the reminder that thousands of disabled veterans return home all the time.

Today I want to talk about “those people.” The sight-impaired, the mobility-impaired, the cognitively-impaired.

That is, you and me.

Web Accessibility Has Always Been for Everyone

Sure, some people have obvious physical and cognitive conditions that challenge them daily and cause society to take special measures to ensure their safety and independence. Those conditions cause us to think of them as a separate group, especially if we don’t see them every day in our own lives. Except that we do. In the mirror.

Situational Disability: Everyone Is Impaired Sometimes

Have you ever tried to eat lunch while driving? Tricky, isn’t it? Your hands are tied up while you need to steer. You get distracted by the salsa, ketchup, or whatever dripping into your lap. Where’d that napkin go—did it get blown back behind your seat? You try to reach for it, but then you can’t see the road. Whoops, you nearly sideswiped somebody that time! Oh, well.

Have you ever written an email while talking on the phone? Typing with one hand is no fun. Typing the same sentence twice or making a dozen typos because you were distracted really slows you down.

Have you ever tried to use your cell phone outside on a sunny day? Kind of hard to see the screen, isn’t it?

When we multi-task, when we use technology in unexpected ways, when we are in certain physical environments, we become physically or cognitively impaired. Situational disability makes “us” one of “those people.” Let’s not forget that.

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The trouble is that business owners usually don’t know enough about the Web to hire wisely. Asking a friend for a referral often doesn’t help because that friend is probably equally clueless about the distinguishing characteristics of a reputable Web professional. (I’m familiar with this phenomenon as well.) What’s a business owner to do?

Ask the Right Questions to Find Your Dream Developer

You don’t need to become a Web expert to recognize a good designer from a bad one. The following 10 qualities are what I would look for were I hiring a Web designer.

1. She Hand-Codes Standards-Compliant XHTML and CSS

If the designer doesn’t know what this means, run. Look for someone who writes her own code and does not rely on a WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”), or visual, HTML editor. (NOTE: Dreamweaver does include a WYSIWYG interface, but many designers do hand-code with it, so apologies for taking a dig at it before.) The designer should know what the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is and that this entity creates the protocols we follow when building Web sites and applications. She should know what valid code is. The designer should code semantically correct XHTML and not rely on layout tables.

2. He Understands the Importance of Web Accessibility

Your designer should know about or at least appreciate the value of making Web content accessible to as many people as possible regardless of physical capabilities, situational factors, or the type of device they’re using to browse the Web. This designer will also know that when we make Web sites accessible for human beings, we are also dramatically improving SEO (search engine optimization). Familiarity with WCAG and Section 508 is also a plus.

3. She Has a Basic Understanding of Organic SEO

A Web designer is not necessarily an SEO expert, but a good designer will appreciate how Web design influences search engine optimization. Your designer will probably be adding metadata to your Web pages for you (unless that’s not part of your service agreement). She will know that standards-compliant, semantically correct code is much more search engine-friendly than table layouts bloated with deprecated HTML.

Big plus: She offers to integrate Google Analytics or some other metrics gathering application into your site (and email campaigns, if applicable) so you can measure performance instead of just guessing at why your site does or doesn’t bring you business.

4. He Knows You Can’t Design a Web Site without Content

How can you design a layout when you don’t know what kind of information is going on the page? Particularly with templated sites, you must plan the content and site architecture first. I would be leery of a designer who wants to jump into visual design right away without considering content.

That said, you shouldn’t necessarily expect your Web designer to write great copy or be familiar with content strategy. Just look for someone who recognizes the key roles content development and site planning play in the design of an effective Web site.

5. She Doesn’t Confuse Being an Artist with Being a Designer

Some artists are great Web designers, but many Web designers are not great artists. I’m including this tip because every time a prospective client has called his former designer “artistic,” it meant that the site was constructed poorly. Several times I found that each page on the site was just an image map (invisible to assistive devices, text-only browsers, and search engines, as I demonstrated in my article on the importance of Web accessibility).

Web design is a specific discipline that requires specific creative, technical, and marketing expertise. There are established criteria by which to judge good design. And there are many other factors that determine how effective a Web site will be. Being a good artist alone doesn’t cut it.

“Artistic” also seems to be a code word for petulant, but, again, that’s only anecdotal evidence….

6. He Has a Great Portfolio

I’ll admit, I’ve been interviewed for a number of freelance and fulltime gigs where the client did not look at my work before talking to me. But you should look at your prospective designer’s past work. You may not be able to judge the quality of the code, but at least check to see if the work examples (not to mention the designer’s own site) looks clean and professional.

7. She Has a Great Blog

I’ve become a customer of several companies because of their blogs. For example, when I got (unexpectedly inherited) my first email marketing job, I had to do a lot of research to train myself. Campaign Monitor’s blog invariably provided the answer. By establishing itself as a trusted adviser, CampaignMonitor was first on my list when it came time for me to choose an email delivery service for my company.

No blog? I wouldn’t necessarily count it against her. But if she does, I’d consider it a sign of commitment to and deep interest in Web media–not just building it for others but being an active participant. Check out the blog if there is one. Does she seem knowledgeable about her topics? Does she write about Web design and marketing? Is she engaged with the Web design community? Does she seem able to help you launch your own blog (if that is part of your project)?

8. He Focuses on Your Business Goals

Your designer should be asking you about who your audience is and what you want them to be able to do on your Web site. Your site development should focus on achieving your business goals. Does he ask you about these things up front before tackling the visual design?

9. She Can Provide a CMS

If you want to make updates to your site without the help of a developer, you’ll need a content management system, which is software you use to create a dynamic, database driven site that includes a WYSIWYG administration area. CMSs also add lots of functionality to your site that most businesses want these days, such as blogging, calendars, social networking features, and so on. If this is part of your project, ask which CMSs the designer uses.

10. He Is Prompt, Polite, and Respectful

No client should be treated with disrespect. If you have an ooky feeling about someone, don’t hire him. If you don’t feel like he is taking your project seriously, don’t hire him–or at least ask him why. Sometimes designers have to prioritize, but he should be able to explain his reasoning respectfully.

No Need to Settle for Less than the Best

Assuming that you are willing to pay the going rate for a professional developer (it varies, but it’s not cheap), you should insist on these qualities because there are too many people who have them for you to settle for less.

I live in Austin, and I am bowled over by the talent I see in my friends and colleagues. We’ve all worked very hard to learn our craft. Moreover, we continue to work at it all the time as technology and the Web design industry evolve relentlessly.

What will the future bring for Web design professionals? I don’t know, but I hope it will include better accountability for us and a higher level of service expected by (and delivered to) our customers. Any thoughts?

But fear not—the longest journey starts with a single step! Using a few simple tools, you can quickly check for accessibility issues on your site, even if you’re not a Web developer!

In my last post about why it’s so important to make your Web content accessible, I picked on another company’s Web site. Felt a wee bit guilty afterward. This time I’ll use my own site, gelfanddesign.com, for my examples!

First Things First: Get the IE Accessibility Toolbar

This handy toolbar gives you access to a wide variety of testing tools. Ordinarily I work in Firefox, which also has accessibility tools included in the Web Developer Toolbar, but the IE version has quite a few additional features, including access to major accessibility tests such as Cynthia Says and WAVE. Also, screen reader users will be using IE as their browser, so if you’re testing for screen readers anyway, you might as well use the IE toolbar.

Download the IE accessibility toolbar.

Test 1: Validate Your Page

The rules for how Web pages should be built are determined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The DOCTYPE in your Web page source tells your browser which W3C protocol to check your page against. When your page follows all of the W3C’s rules for that DOCTYPE, your page is considered valid.

Select Validate»HTML W3C Validator»Validate HTML to see if your Web page is following all of the rules!

Test 2: Turn off CSS

Cascading Style Sheets are the files that tell your browser how to display the elements in your HTML pages—from font colors to the positioning of text and images on the page. Adaptive technology (and search engines!) don’t perceive CSS—they’re blind, remember? They just read through the page. Turn off CSS to see if the content on your page is still readable and displays in an order that makes sense.

Select CSS»Disable CSS to see how your site looks without any styles

Even without styles, the content on this page still makes sense

Test 3: Turn Off Images

Often, in an attempt to make beautiful designs, we make heavy use of images. When we use images in place of text, however, we risk hiding that content from a lot of users:

• Adaptive technology such as screen readers
• Search engines
• Anyone who has chosen to disable images in their browser (for instance, the person might have a slow internet connection and want pages to load as quickly as possible)

How does your Web site look with images disabled? Can you still get to all of the content? Does the page still make sense?

For some reason IE’s accessibility toolbar doesn’t have an option for disabling images (yuck), so I am switching over to Firefox for this test.

Select Images»Disable Images»All Images to turn off images in your Firefox browser

Test 4: Check the ALT Text of Images

All images (<IMG> elements) should have an ALT attribute:

<img src="image.jpg" alt="text describing image goes here" />

The ALT text should describe your image. If the image is purely decorative, or if the image is placed directly beside a caption or description, then the ALt tag can be “empty:”

<img src="image.jpg" alt="" />

If an image is wrapped in an anchor (link) element, then it absolutely needs alternative text.

<a href="/path/to/destination.html"><img src="image.jpg" alt="this image is my only clue about where this link goes!" /></a>

The W3C validation test will reveal if images are missing ALT attributes, but you also need to evaluate whether the ALT attributes needs to contain text and ensure that the ALT text is useful. Selecting Images»Show Images in the IE accessibility toolbar will outline all IMG elements on the page, as well as the corresponding alt text.

Use Images»Show Images to review the ALT text on your page

Test 5: Check the Contrast of Colors

Ever tried to use your cell phone outside but weren’t able to see the screen because of the sunlight? People who have problems discerning contrast or who are color blind have this problem all the time.

The IE accessibility toolbar has a number of different tools to help you see your Web page through another person’s eyes. The Color Analyzer is a handy way to see if the contrast ratio meets accepted guidelines.* There’s even an awesome little eyedropper tool to help you catch the color you need to analyze.

Select Colour»Contrast Analyser (application) to see if there is enough contrast between foreground and background colors

The Tip of the Iceberg

You can use these tests on a few representative pages of your site (the home page, a landing page, a plain content page, and your contact form page) in just a few minutes. You’re only scratching the surface, but the results should give you an idea of areas you can improve, often with simple solutions like adding ALT text to your images, updating font/background colors, and correcting HTML markup errors.

Stay tuned for more information on ACCESSIFYING your site!

The federal government acknowledged through the 1998 amending of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 508) that access to information is a civil right. I would like for this to be the cornerstone of any argument for accessible design. However, in my experience, C-level executives don’t jump at the chance to spend money or alter existing practices for the sake of Doing the Right Thing. For better or worse, a company’s accessibility champion has to make these decision-makers see dollar signs to inspire them to take meaningful action. So, how do you do that?

Accessibility Is for Everyone

Accessibility is about removing barriers between your Web content and your customers. That does mean making content available to assistive technology such as screen readers and taking into consideration the possible physical and cognitive limitations of your audience, but the end result is making your content easy for everyone to use no matter where they are, what they’re doing, or what device they’re using to browse the Web.

• When designing a site, when we consider assistive technology, we’re also addressing emerging technology such as mobile devices. We can never know how people will access the Web in the future. Forward compatibility prevents potentially expensive refitting.
• “Disability” can be situational. Would anyone argue that someone talking on the phone while driving isn’t impaired? How about someone talking on the phone while browsing the Web? Or someone browsing the web on a mobile device using keyboard navigation.

The end result is about making your site available to the widest audience possible as much of the time as possible.

The Population Is Changing

• Over 50 million Americans have some type of physical disability.
• The U.S. population is graying. Millions of Americans will be experiencing a decline in sight, hearing, and physical mobility. They won’t stop spending money, though. Businesses will want to make the online customer experience accessible to this massive demographic.
• Thousands of disabled veterans are returning home each year.

Your Most Important Web Site Visitor Is Blind and Deaf

This is the best argument by far to bring to the Big Boss’s attention.

Accessible sites that are coded with lean, mean, standards-compliant XHTML and CSS aren’t just easier for screen readers to handle; they’re also more search engine friendly. Google, your friendly neighborhood “bot” responsible for indexing Web pages and serving them up on Web searches, can’t see or hear. It relies on the text in the Web page source to figure out what your site is about and where it should be ranked in search results.

Want to see what Google sees? Strip out images and CSS from your Web browser view. You can do this by using the Firefox browser and installing the Web Developer plugin. In the event that you don’t have the time or inclination to do that, I found a nice-looking business site and turned off images and styles for you. Take a look. Ask yourself: What Would Google Do? (Company title and tagline blurred out to keep them from coming after me!)

Beautiful Web page with all styles and images visible

Same site with styles and images disabled. You're not hallucinating - the entire site disappears without imges enabled! That's what Google sees.

Businesses Get Sued for Inaccessible Web Sites

Although only the federal government is subject to Section 508 requirements, businesses are not off the hook by any stretch of the imagination. Both the government and commercial establishments are vulnerable to legal action. Last year Target settled a class-action lawsuit with the National Federation of the Blind for $6 million over complaints that its site was’t accessible to screen reading technology. The National Federation of the Blind also filed suit against AOL in 1999, and Access Now, Inc., has sued Southwest Air, claire’s, and Barnes & Noble for having inaccessible Web sites.

That Said, Focus on the Positive

I’m not a fan of fear tactics, so I would not use this as a justification for accessibility when talking to C-level executives. The ADA applies only to government institutions. Most businesses will fly under the radar and never be sued (I think). Focus on the low cost of building accessibility into the design, the benefits of search engine optimization, the accommodation of potential customers, and forward compatibility. (And, while you’re building your impressive laundry list of why to get Accessified now, access to information as a CIVIL RIGHT!)

Accessibility Just Makes Sense

Making the case for accessibility requires getting past abstract ideals or threats. It’s about injecting common sense into the design process by taking into account:

• Accessible sites are not more expensive or more difficult to build—in fact, I’d say the opposite is true.
• The cost of refitting
• The requirements of future technology
• The universal need people have to get to information on the Web quickly and easily
• A superior customer experience on the Web—no angry or frustrated customers
• Search engine optimization

Where Do You Go from Here?

You’re on board, I just know it! So, what do you do now? Is your site accessible? What can you do to make your site more accessible? Stay tuned for answers, tips, and resources to help you Get Accessified!

In 2007 my team built a site for textile artist extraordinaire Susan Cranshaw, who remains a dear friend of mine.

I also highly recommend Knowbility’s annual Access U accessibility conference. Access U is an invaluable resource for Web and IT professionals who want to know about accessibility laws, assistive technology, and best practices for developing accessible Web sites and applications.