Group Pushes for Web Sites Designed for All Internet Users
Wall Street Journal (01/05/01); Becky Bright

The federal government recently said its Web sites must be accessible to
individuals with disabilities. Judy Brewer, director of the Web Accessibility
Initiative (WAI), a branch of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), says such
a mandate should extend to all Web sites to benefit all users, not only those
with a disability. Brewer argues that although the Web has provided several
new opportunities for accessing information previously unavailable to those
with disabilities, it has also made it more difficult to ensure that all
individuals, regardless what their specific disability is, can access that
information. For example, while a site may support screen-reading software
for those with visual impairments, it may not provide captions for those with
hearing impairments. In February 2000, WAI released the authoring tool
accessibility guidelines (ATAG), a series of guidelines to assist Web
designers in making sure their sites can be accessed by as many users as
possible. Brewer also points out that Web authors now have access to numerous
applications that can check to see if a site meets accessibility standards
for individuals with disabilities. Brewer says owners of Web sites have four
reasons for making their sites accessible. First, there are many individuals
with disabilities - 54 million in the United States alone - and to ignore such
a large demographic could be costly. Second, making sure that a site is
accessible to those with disabilities will likely make it more friendly for
all users. Third, some Web site owners, especially those who run sites for
federal, state, and local governments, must make their sites accessible
because of the law. Finally, she says site owners can make a statement about
how much they are concerned about the community by making their sites
accessible.  

