“Whether you’re a Web developer or someone who manages Web developers, we want to persuade you that good design is accessible design” (Slatin and Rush 10)
As we set out to work on this project, we had to separate matters of accessibility and matters of compliance. More specifically, early on in our research, we came to find that access is not necessarily contingent on compliance with guidelines and standards. And whereas Section 508 and Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) standards are important, along with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (view the WCAG latest draft), as they provide both broad and specific approaches to design, mere compliance does not guarantee access or positive Web experiences, experiences highlighted by the interplay of various media and the various texts that converge and create the context surrounding user experience. Instead these standards and guidelines came to be viewed as resources.
Additionally, as our research was in its early stages, we increasingly became familiar with organizations like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and with the work of professionals and colleagues, namely Jakob Nielsen, Norman Coombs, and John Slatin. We came to find that accessibility is a concern for all screen users, not especially those with special needs. As John Mueller notes in Accessibility for Everyone, for example, access has historically been misunderstood by developers as a matter of code, something to be added to an application to make it usable by those with visual, auditory, or physical disabilities. “While this is certainly one definition of accessibility,” he acknowledges, “it’s also the least productive and narrow-minded interpretation” (5). A fuller approach to accessibility emphasizes the interplay between the user and the on-screen experience. It emphasizes, too, the multiple uses of screen-based texts. Slatin and Rush demonstrate as much in Maximum Accessibility as they map user experiences on Amazon.com, on various transportation sites (e.g., the site for Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and the site for Tri-Met Public Transportation in Portland, Oregon), on multiple museum websites, and on the website for National Public Radio. What we gain from their narrative tour as users of these sites is a composite picture of poor design, specifically poor design that translates into poor access or no access at all.