Accessibility for All
PC Week
05/04/98, page 80

The next time you go the store, your office, or a public building, look
around and you will see access ramps and other means for assisting the
disabled. 

Now go to your favorite Web site or your company's home page. You are
unlikely to find any features to assist the disabled. 

Lack of such accommodations is a growing problem for Web developers, IT
managers, and disabled users. Not only does the lack of assistance limit
access to information, it cuts off a potentially large group of users, or
customers, of online businesses. 

Until now, most users with physical or cognitive disabilities merely got by
on the Web. Some use text readers, speech synthesizers or voice-activated
commands to penetrate HTML. But that access is in danger of being cut off as
the Web becomes more application-centric. with complex scripts for generating
dynamic content, which text-based software can't translate. Likewise,
hearing- or visually disabled users can navigate a site but are left behind
when audio or video is the source of information. 

The solutions to the access problem are many and simple. First. IT managers
and Web-design teams should wake up to the need to maximize access for all
types of disabled users. 

Second, developers should follow Web design recommendations being drafted bv
the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative group. When the
guidelines are published, within the next few months, they will call for
standard ways of presenting content that will make it easier for disabled
users to navigate a site, such as implementing standard style sheets instead
of custom HTML tags and offering closed-captioning and transcripts of
multimedia presentations. 

Third, IT managers should learn about the potential crossover benefits that
access technologies will give to their nondisabled work force - for example,
"hands-busy" workers, such as those in factories or operating rooms. 

The Department of Justice has ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act
has jurisdiction over public Web sites the same way it does over public
buildings. If adoption of accessibility initiatives is slow, lawsuits may
result. 

We take for granted the infrastructure that assists the handicapped through
the everyday world. IT managers and online developers should make access to
the Web just as ubiquitous.