I was very impressed to read WordPress’s accessibility out of the box. There are a few issues to iron out before AAA is reached but that’s pretty good going I think you’ll agree! So if you are looking for a blogging engine or a simple CMS go for WordPress.

That “text only” link you see on some websites winds me up. It really makes me see red. To me it shows lack of understanding and laziness when it comes to accessibility. It goes against the accessibility initiative.

This type of ”alternative” site is providing a second class service for those who would benefit from accessibility enhancements. Some sites I’ve seen actually run these as completely separate sites generally of lower priority which leads to out of date or inaccurate content in comparison to the main website!

As I’ve been banging on about for ages there are easy ways to makes sure the main website is available to everybody without the need for a text only version - if web best practices are used you’d be surprised how many ticks you’ll already have in your accessibility boxes.

However an article that has made me think a little more about this subject is one about accessibility being in a post-guideline age. The basic premise being that following the guidelines is not enough to ensure good website accessibility and user testing is key. This of course is correct although I feel not always realistic in every case - I’ll come back to this later.

The thing that jumped out in this article is the mention that maybe “alternative” versions of a website are now acceptable. Not in the same scheme of things as the text only cop-outs I mentioned earlier but in the respect that everyone is receiving tailored content for the individual so why not use this to enhance the site for everyone? Perhaps this tailored content could actually mean that, for example, people using screen readers could have a particularly optimised experience to fit them?

My personal opinion is this should only be an extension of existing accessibility functions on the site but certainly has potential. Different users have different needs and therefore some techniques can boost their experience - possibly even making other user’s experience not as good.

User testing would be imperative to ensure every personalisation made the best for a particular group but this is where I come back to my earlier point about not being realistic in every case.

User testing isn’t cheap and there is an iterative process involved which too can increase development costs for a website. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done but not all companies can afford to spend the extra doing this. The situation currently still has accessibility proponents having to convince some companies to look at accessibility at all.

Accessibility standards I believe are becoming mature and with the British Standard in the future I can only see more and more companies seeing this as essential. I don’t believe the web development community is yet in a position to support this across the board although knowledge is spreading and maybe the nay sayers are beginning to have their heads turned by the convincing arguments of the accessibility community.

It’s still a process that is going to take time - larger companies (or those very reliant on being inclusive to all) will set the standard and user testing for accessibility will become the norm. In the meantime the guidelines are of exceptional importance and the accessibility community must be supportive to companies that make unintentional mistakes.

It’s a constant annoyance to me how bad the Birmingham City Council website. Even with a fairly recent makeover it just doesn’t project Birmingham’s image well (it’s top of Google for “Birmingham” for a start).

I understand the amount of information on the site is massive but surely it could be organised better? Public sector websites of course have strict targets to reach with regard to website accessibility but this is no excuse for a poor design. After all if Birmingham is, as I seem to remember, the largest council in Europe surely it should be able to throw the resource at the website. I’ve given up numerous times trying to find information I need - maybe I’m just lazy but I don’t think I’m the only one to have this problem. An extra bit of investment here might well see costs being reduced elsewhere as the website will be doing it job properly.

Just to prove this challenge isn’t unobtainable take a look at Woking Borough Council’s website which does a much better job of it mixing an excellent blend of simple design, accessibility with usability for visitors.

To be fair to Birmingham City Council they aren’t the only public sector website that fails in fact from my experience the successes are in the minority. However projecting Birmingham as a great city has got to be done across the board and I believe currently this is a bit of a let down.

I’m a strong proponent of web accessibility standards and happened to stumble across the Guild of Accessible Web Designers during my travels around the wibbly web.

Their mission statement is “Promoting a vision of the future that assumes accessible web design to be, relevant, obtainable, and not at odds with successful business practice or good visual and usable design.”

A noble aim but their website isn’t exactly inspiring design wise. As they are trying to dispel the false belief that an accessible website can’t be pleasing to the eye you might have thought they’d spend a little more time on their website design? There are even formatting issues in Internet Explorer 7.

It does however look like members know their stuff and I’m pleased to see membership is selective - you must prove your accessibility expertise before joining.