This week’s AdAge.com Digital edition had a nice piece on the importance of Web Accessibility – you can read the piece here if you have an AdAge subscription.

For those of you still trying to get a good understanding of the costs and benefits of accessibility, this is a nice, simple introduction to the topic.

In addition to mentioning the recent lawsuit settlements by Target and Apple iTunes with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the author (Chris Berk from Resource Interactive) lays out the market potential of the disabled market and provides a simple “check list” on how to optimize your Web site for disabled users.
Although he mentioned it at the end, I do feel the article only skimmed over one of the most important benefits of accessible Web design – usability. An accessible Web site is a usable Web site. Even going farther to design and aethestic, some of the most beautiful and aesthetically pleasing Web sites in the world are highly accessible. It’s just good design.

Also, there was no mention of accessibility standards, specifically the W3C and Section 508.

This is a good start though and I’m glad to see AdAge is paying attention.

Jose Villa, President

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