The toughest problem facing web accessibility is awareness. I’m surprised frankly, that there haven’t been more official complaints or court cases against an inaccessible web site, and they are the vast majority on the web. Fortunately, Target is currently being sued by the NFB!
I’ve recently started a new company, CheckEngine USA (now Web Overhauls), that focuses on web accessibility and web standards, but who cares? I’m having problems getting clients because no one is even aware of what this is and why it’s important. I hope the U.S. gets more serious about theses issues and follow the lead of the U.K. and Australia. Not only for my sake, but everyone else’s.
Furthermore, it seems that most web design companies themselves are quite ignorant of the subject and use web accessibility. So not only must I educate potentials customers, but also web designers (in order to have any chance of winning consultation services).
Are you facing the same issue?
3 replies on “Awareness/Ignorance of Web Accessibility”
I am. I develop websites for the State of California, and although I care about making it as accessible as possible, and the State officially cares, everyone’s asking me why it is taking me longer to develop now than a year ago.
Here’s a question that’s been bothering me for a while…what do you do about readers that read the text wrong? My reader (Home Site Reader) reads “CA” (for California) as “kah”. Should abbreviations always have periods? That sort of violates Strunk&White doesn’t it? I’m stumped on this one!
Use the ABBR tag around CA. Many screen readers will then correctly pronounce it. See the WebAxe podcast/post on Abbreviations and Acronyms. Here’s some code to get you going (the span/CSS is an IE fix):
CA
Heh, thanks.
I remember reading about that and thinking to myself I would forget it, shoulda taken notes! Helps the aging ol’ memory when I write it down.
Thanks Den!