Web Accessibility
Date: 05/10/05
(WebDesign) Keywords: web
I noticed the issue of web accessibility come up in the comments to a recent post and got the impression that some people here aren't aware (or perhaps not fully aware) of the problems that disabled people face and the subsequent need for a good designer to take in to account designing for said disabled users.
Now before you flame me, let me say that there are obviously times when it doesn't make sense to design for disabled users: blind users and an art portfolio site, for instance.
A few months back, Jakob Nielsen's useit.com was brought up, but the high-handed tone and irrelevancy of Nielsen's Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design and the fact that the site looks absolutely horrible repulses people that don't already feel accessibility to be an important issue.
So I dug through my bookmarks and got together a nice little primer on why accessibility is important, the first several links are flash applications that simulate what it's like to use a web site while hindered by some form of disability:
With those out of the way, here's a bigger read: Mark Pilgrim's Dive Into Accessibility. I highly suggest reading at least the first five "days", which describe five different hypothetical users and the difficulties they face. It's even well-written.
Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/webdesign/872791.html