aware-techniques archives | Mar 2002 | new search | results | previous | next |
Folks > Nearly all accessibly-designed web sites lack a conceptual design > focus. So do most other web sites but this condition is more > pervasive in the accessible design community. Authors of those sites > have learned how to place images and format text and organize > information, which means accessible sites are often quite usable but, > in terms of visual design, only "OK" at best and often "blah," as > Kukla et al observed. Functionality is an aspect that I'm sure everyone deals with at one time or another with regard to whatever field they work in. There is a learning process with regard to balancing functionality and visual design that I'm sure many struggle with. I know I do. Admittedly, my sites would most likely be termed boring or blah and I'll never make the pages of www.coolhomepages.com. :) To be perfectly honest, I'm not as concerned about that as I am about offering my clients the ability to put their business information on the internet in an affordable and hopefully well-presented way. I'm not the artist in the family :), I'm the organizer. That doesn't mean that I don't have the ability to discern colour and balance nor apply some design principles to what I'm working on. Consequently I do not browse the web with the intent on only being stimulated by visual aspects but rather look for a combination of ideas, visual presentation and information that appeal. While I recognize that visual presentation is exceptionally important to some, I wonder if we are respecting the general population or for that matter, the majority. I've been to a number of very interesting sites that have the "wow" factor, however, the sites that I frequent are the ones that appeal to me because of content rather than visual presentation. Having said that, I'm very aware of the fact that I do not stay at sites that I find difficult to read regardless of the information it contains. Perhaps we all view the web from our own special perspectives. I guess what I am most concerned with is why would we exclude people who genuinely want to go to that website but are unable to access it because of the barriers. As with everything with the web, it's an evolving process. If we embrace the principles behind accessibility, we will not only include people who have disabilities but we will also be part of a developing process that will, in time, evolve in much the same way that the web has. The challenge then, is to design a website that has "conceptual design" as well as accessibility (?) Why should that be out of the reach of the web-design community? Years ago I started with a small monitor (hmmm, greyscale, I think ;) ) and accessed the internet when everything was text-based and ASCII art was de rigeur (grin). That never stopped my interest nor my desire to continue with this medium. The development of the web was the icing on the cake. So, if we broaden our perspectives and acknowledge the fact that the web is not an exclusive medium, will we not expand the horizons of others as well as ourselves? Perhaps for many the issue is not so much the aspect of including accessibility but rather the fact that there are laws and guidelines. The internet community as a whole has usually rejected controls of this nature. Unfortunately, when it comes to people with disabilities, it has become a *necessary fact of life* that barriers are generally only removed when laws are set up to do so. I recognize that for many their exposure to people with disabilities may be somewhat limited. Consquently, there is a perception that they are a "minority" population and therefore there isn't a "need" to address the issues that this segment of the population deal with on a day-to-day basis. I look at it from not only my personal perspective but also from my experiences so I'll continue to expound on the issues that exclude many, many people. If looked at from the commercial point of view, people with disabilities are part of the buying public also :) Ok, that's enough of my pontificating for now :) - for those who haven't read it here's: http://aware.hwg.org/why/myths.html#m2 Shelley
HWG: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA