A Necessity Often Neglected

After reading a very interesting paper written by researchers from the University of Bath, entitled "From Web Accessibility to Web Adaptability," the current stance towards Web accessibility appears to be in the process of a much-needed reformation.

Web accessibility, in the past, has often been plagued by cumbersome, or sometimes ambiguous guidelines, work groups, and web initiatives like WCAG, and WAI. Though they were created with the intention to help Web content be accessible to all users of all abilities, they were often near impossible to fully-implement within real-world solutions and time-frames.

As a consequence, and in an effort to bridge the ideal with practicality, many now view Web accessibility as the ability to access information, services, and products, customizable to an individual's preferences, and needs. This paradigm shift is, if not highly influenced then directly effected by the convergence of many methodologies, and progressive developments currently taking place on the World-Wide-Web: the general acceptance of Web 2.0 strategies, Service-oriented Architecture (SOA), and the emergence of the Semantic Web.

Despite this change, however, the problem still remains with implementing good Web accessibility. Even with a growing acceptance to take a more holistic view towards current guidelines and hard-fast rules, many Web developers and design firms simply neglect (either by ignorance, intimidation of potential complexity, or incompetence) good Web accessibility practices when developing sites and applications -- much to the detriment of their clients' Web presence.

The implementation of poor, or non-existent Web accessibility practices on the part of Web developers, first and foremost, runs the risk of alienating potential customers, or users to their clients' sites. It can also create such a bad user-experience, that the visitor to the site never returns (even after corrections are made, post-launch), and may, in fact, promote bad publicity.

And let's not forget search engines. A Web site without good Web accessibility runs a heavy risk of not being indexed properly, meaning that the potential Web owner's competition gets the upper-hand to new clients searching for the Web owner's service, or product.

But beyond user-experience, and indexability of search engines, perhaps the biggest problem a Web owner will be faced with should good Web accessibility practices be neglected, are the legal ramifications.

In truth, many countries currently have legislation on the books -- or are in the process of introducing legislation -- that places a higher responsibility on web site owners to not unjustifiably discriminate against disabled people with accessibility barriers. In fact, there have already been many successful legal actions taken on the basis of poor, or lackluster Web accessibility. One of the first successful cases was Barry Maguire v. Sydney Olympics Organising Committee, in Australia, which won the litigant close to $20,000 USD in damages. Combined with further litigation from other plaintiffs, and new Web development costs to fix the problems, total costs ran into the millions. Another case of successful litigation was the US National Federation of the Blind v. AOL; this was settled for an undisclosed fee out-of-court. But with this in mind, Web site owners need to be aware that the threat of legal action is very real, and can happen to any company, large or small.

In short, most Web developers may often neglect Web accessibility, but its importance should never be underestimated.