I’m sorry to hear that. One thing that might help to tell them is that SEO and accessibility goes hand in hand, when it comes to semantically marking up your content. That in turn might result in happier client, leading to more work and in the end better security and/or salaries for them.

And if they’re lazy, writing HTML and CSS becomes way easier if you have lots of different elements, so you don’t have to apply ids and classes all over.

Good luck!

What arguments can I make to colleagues who aren’t persuaded by the financial benefits or by improving other peoples lives? How do I persuade someone to put that bit of extra effort into developing a web site when it’s not going to benefit them personally?

Thanks for the link.

There is plenty of free advice about how to quickly create accessible content for websites.

I know, that is a very bad decision by them.

And I can’t really find any good reason why they would do something like that, either.

The WCAG have been dumbed down moving validation from level one to level two… (insert expletive of your choice) … and I need not say more as I totally agree with what Gez says there. Testability is a fundamental principle of software engineering.

Thought it may be a pertinent read for those who haven’t caught that one today.

Welcome here!

It’s good to see that you seem to have very similar experiences to mine.

And, as stated above in people’s comments and in other people’s blogs, if you started doing it right (i.e. writing accessible web pages etc), it comes natural in the future.

Absolutely, but it doesn’t take you all the way, with all necessary testing needed to confirm that and other development aspects to take into consideration.

That’s also why I wanted to bring up the money perspective, because in the real world, that’s the thing in the end what decides if something is going to happen or not.

If you can build a website that does that and when you also can take usability issues into account you’re already well on your way. The issue whether accessibility can be financial beneficial is circumspect at the very least. To make make matters worse it’s actually very difficult to defend a accessibility budget from a statistical point of view. Accessibility gains and concerns are washed aside by the weight of overwhelming support for everything else other than accessibility. Building and testing with usability in mind has been shown time and time again to be very cost effective. That should take precedence over accessibility any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

At the moment I’ll fight the ideological battles I can win. I’m just going to sneak accessibility in through the side entrance bit by bit. Content separation and usability allow me to do this without me feeling like I’m sticking it to the man. Rebelion is for the young and young I am no longer. In the grown up world I design and build websites.

Ok, then we’re on the same page!

And yes, it would make a huge difference if they went out and promoted valid, accesssible code (Google, please do).

By the way, I wrote a post about object detection a while ago.

Personally, I think that Google is in a unique position to promote adherence to the W3C specifications. Imagine the effect it would have on SEOs if Google said that they work better with valid code.

Unfortunately, Google have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. So long as it’s difficult to make sense of HTML, Google has an advantage over everybody who has less resources than them to throw at the problem.

Not that I think Google are doing it deliberately, one look at the typical code they use makes it fairly obvious that their skills with HTML/CSS/Javascript aren’t very advanced. Sure, they can build _complex_ web applications, but they do it by throwing lots of code at the problem instead of throwing quality code at the problem. Example: browser detection over object detection. Ick. Straight out of the mid 90s.

Thanks for your input.

Personally, I think that if major players like Google and Microsoft don’t follow web standards and if they aren’t making accessible web sites, they’re setting the bar for many companies that will imitate them.

If you are as huge as they are, you have a certain responsibility in what you deliver.

Well, Google seem to do pretty good. And if they don’t care about web standards or accessibility, why should we?

a) If a browser breaks on Google’s invalid code, the browser is dead in the water and will never see the light of day. If a browser breaks on your little client’s website, the problem gets put on the end of an infinitely long to-do list of things to work around and the browser gets released to millions of people anyway.

b) Does your client have Google’s resources to fix any problems that might crop up? Do you have a large testing lab of myriad different combinations of browsers, operating systems, video cards, etc? (Not kidding: the type of video card triggers certain problems, e.g. Gecko’s infuriatingly slow scrolling with fixed backgrounds).

Google get away with it because they are huge. Most organisations simply don’t have that luxury, so saying “well Google does it” is nonsensical.

Good point. And nice reference to Kiefer Sutherland; we don’t see many of those in web developer’s blogs.

When it comes to your specific problem with a fixed position: use position:fixed in CSS for competent web browsers and the fix for position:fixed in IE that I link to in RobLab’s CSS page.

Also, I definitely agree that the day you’re not willing to move on and evolve, that day you should stop working with the web.

One of the accessible sites I created was also tested (mainly for fun) with a variety of mobile phones, Palms, Windows CE devices (and browsers). Even WAP-browsers were able to display the content properly and readable.

Consequently, accessibility also means that I do create websites for mobile devices. Sure, I could go the .NET approach of creating an extra-site and using the extra-”Mobile Controls” – but hey, my name is not Jack Bauer – I definitely cannot work 24 hours a day.

Sure, I am schizophrenic enough to create framed sites and table layout for quick and dirty products – whenever the customer wants this. When the CEO requests: “I want the menu to be sticky at the top left, like the one on the [framed] site of my son”. Well, I do it with frames.

Finally to answer your question “Why accessibility?”, I also think that the (Internet-)world moves forward only. The day, I don’t want to move along anymore with new techniques and technologies, I probably will change the job. This is why I believe in accessible web design.

Probably not a coincidence, he’s a friend of mine and we’re avid readers of each other’s blogs (or at least I am of his! ).

Bryan,

You mention good and valid points. The only ‘but’ is:

Aside from extra time placed into the project…

And extra time equals extra money equals someone responsible might pull the plug to save money (unless above arguments have convinced them they’ll win back that money in the long run).

Fredrik,

I feel your pain!

And most clients just care about what they can see. Not what others can’t see.

So true. Then one has some hard work trying to get them to trust your professional judgement in making the calls, show them web browser stats and so on. But it’s not easy.

Fris,

I thought that one of the defining pro’s to using CSS was that it made the development / design factors more inexpensive than other routes.

Well, yes, that should be one of many pros.

However I can see when your speaking of a site that has allready been built poorly , re-dedicating funds to correcting the problem is where the real issue is.

But I have a friend, not particulary close who probably is the worst client ever how have had some trouble with the fact that my layouts aren’t as backward compatible as table layouts, so I have to use every css-hack in the book to get it too look the same in old Netscape installations to IE 5. Naturally, he calls often pointing out this and that after he has visited some friend or a public library.

Each time I do my speech about accessability. He often replies: “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Can’t you fix it now?”

This is a rince-and-repeat progress. I could have fixed it the “easy” way and just let IE 5 users get a “light” version of the site, but not for this guy.

This is the problem. Tables looks the same, everywhere. And most clients just care about what they can see. Not what others can’t see.

You could always state to a client to try and convince them something like this

By including accessibility into your site, you not only attempt to reach the greatest number of users, but you protect yourself in advance for any accessibility laws that may be passed in the future. Its important that everyone, handicapped or not, has access to the same information. Condoning to accessibility rules not only can better yourself on search engines, but can place your company higher on a moral factor and could be recognized as such in the future. Aside from extra time placed into the project, there really are no negatives to taking this route.

Or something along those lines.

Just my 2 cents.