sugarenia.com

Most of the times, I’m totally against celebrating “special days”, which serve only in soothing our conscience. Today is the day devoted to People with Disabilities (or Special Abilities, as some love repeating).

I disagree with the above “hide-behind-the-pole” technique. Yes, these people have special abilities, yes, they can continue living without too much distraction due to their disabilities, but no, they continue to have “special needs” even if we keep denying it.

Nowadays, I’m more and more occupied and concerned over standards-based web design, which happens to be a very good solution for people with disabilities to enjoy the Web as much as all others do. Web standards has began as a necessity, has developed as a trend, and now it re-emerges as a top priority for most web designers.

Some just hop on the bandwagon. Some struggle not to be left behind by the new crushing wave in their professional field. Some even adopt the web standards techniques because it helps them code more efficiently and intuitively. Some others just to increase the numbers of their target group.

Whatever is your reason, adopting now the accessibility standards is an important asset for tomorrow, both for you (and your precious code) and for your specially “designed” (and I mean that as a compliment) friends. Try to avoid the nested tables technique, use form labels and alt image text, design with disabilities in mind, consult the WAI pages. You’ll surely succeed in developing a highly usable site, for disabled and normal (now that’s a generalization) people alike.

After all, nothing is impossible, you never know on which side of the river you’ll reside tomorrow.

Devoted to all disabled friends.

Web, Standards, Accessibility, WIA