The problem is the stigma attached to the term “accessibility”. Now we know that web accessibility achieves more than simply facilitating access to web content. But a lot of government organizations and businesses don’t see the need to even try and conform to accessibility guidelines.

As part of a group of organizations (the advisory group for the Dutch Web Accessibility/Quality Guidelines) concerned with changing this way of thinking, several of us are trying to compile a list of themes/categories/factors which can be considered building blocks of really good websites, or less-obvious benefits of accessible websites. I’m aware of many, but lots of people in this industry are so incredibly smart; it would be such a pity not to ask.

So I’m asking! The idea is to create a list of things like “interoperable”, “search-engine friendly/findability”, “archivable” etc. to help convince government organizations and businesses that there are lots of non-obvious benefits in conforming to web accessibility guidelines. “Cuts down on bandwidth usage” is fine. I’ll parse the list and try to group like-minded suggestions together to come up with some high-level themes. I will post the results and link to any known follow-up usage or derivative of the resulting list.

Even if you can only think up one thing, please add it to the comments! Ask your friends (but don’t spam :) ). Don’t worry too much about accessibility, just quickly note whatever you think makes a great website.

Care to chip in? What constitutes a good website?

As with any usability or accessibility guidelines, there are some myths which keep rearing their heads. These myths came to be in the minds of clients, mostly because because of what these clients have been told by hack, unprofessional front-end developers. You know, the kind who design websites based on what their framework or CMS is able to handle in its more or less standard form; god forbid these developers should know the faintest thing about decent markup. I’m tired of hearing what’s not possible within accessibility guidelines, especially when it’s simply untrue.

We’ll be talking about that.

For the Dutch among you, read more on the Zinformatie website.

On November 8th I had the privilege of taking part in a panel discussion at the eNederland conference about web accessibility and the new Quality Model for Websites. The Quality Model is heavily based on the Dutch Web Guidelines for government websites, and is an effort to encourage businesses to conform to accessibility and usability best practices. Other members of the panel were Gerlach Cerfontaine (President and CEO of Schiphol Group) , Rabobank ICT-manager Harrie Vollard and Thuiswinkel.org director Wijnand Jongen. There is a photo and a summary (in Dutch) at the website of the Taskforce for Handicap and Society, one of the initiators of the Quality Model project.

Next Thursday (November 29th), I’ll be doing a presentation for Logeion Association for Communication on real-world application of accessibility and usability guidelines, and the impact on online communication. Ruben Timmerman will present some case studies on the business application of usability principles. More information is available (in Dutch) at the Logeion website.