On May 9th, 2005 Stevie Wonder presented two versions of his new music video, “So What the Fuss”. While a new video release is hardly headline material, this one was special. The video includes a second track which includes an audio description narrated by Busta Rhymes, for the purpose of blind or low vision people to experience a descriptive music video. Using a new video music technology, Stevie Wonder has made it possible for music fans to “apply their vision to my video thanks to the descriptive technique” regardless of handicap.

Web site programmers, marketers and planners must take into account the growing awareness of these needs when they set out to plan their web sites. Simply designing a site to perform the basic functions will not suffice. Careful understanding of who will be using the site, how they operate and the necessary considerations could eliminate problems from the start and create goodwill for the company. While Web accessibility seems to be a polarizing issue, it is becoming one that will be inescapable as the internet community progresses. The majority of the US population is growing older, and recent studies have shown that failing eyesight is one of the foremost symptoms in the aging of our society.

In a March 2005 Associated Press news article, studies showed that 15 million Americans suffer from Macular Degeneration, a genetic defect that is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly. That number is expected to dramatically increase as the baby-boomer population ages. In addition to this startling story, there are numerous causes of vision-related disabilities. Many vision problems are not included in the typical blindness estimates as they are from other disorders, disease, and trauma or associated with other genetic causes.

Adhering to a few specific ideas, the question of creating an accessible website is very easy. When looking at the bigger picture, we can also see that this also fits into the realm of search engine optimization. Search engine spiders are really the most handicapped of all users that will visit your site. They cannot see images, JavaScript links are usually difficult or simply not seen, content is not viewed through a style sheet, and multimedia is not seen or heard. Colored graphs, charts and text are also not “seen”.

If your main goal is to expose your website to the greatest amount of people and have it understood by them, then the Accessibility Priority Checklist from the WAI (http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/checkpoint-list.html ) should be your resource. The data contained in this check list could easily transform your web presence into one that is an all-inclusive platform for users. In addition, following the basic principles of this checklist can also assist your web site in gaining rankings from the search engines.

Search Engine Optimization is becoming mainstream in corporate thinking, and the accessibility guidelines can also assist those efforts. Unique page titles, descriptive link text, page-specific metadata, sitemaps, and additional text and mark-up based elements that convey alternative information. In additional to basic optimization techniques, common sense marketing techniques also assist users to understand the information presented on a web site. Simple usability-based marketing techniques include; consistent navigation, consistent organization of information, arranging content for manageable readability, text equivalents for multimedia, common sense search functions for different skill levels, and obvious conversion points.

Sadly, however, many optimizers take advantage of elements that are used to make browsing easier for low-vision users and create a difficult experience. These elements are designed to enhance a person’s ability to learn more about the content of a page; instead they are treated to a barrage of repetitive keywords. Simply repeating keywords in links, titles and meta data in order to boost rankings can create a page that is difficult to navigate, harder to understand and almost impossible to use for users dependant upon assistive technology. Interestingly enough, these types of pages do not tend to rate highly with non-disabled users. Even users with full vision use the same elements of the page to determine value of the page. Making the effort to create well-written descriptions, links and titles can create a page that connects with the user because of the writing, but can also create additional relevance and allow access to all.

From a page design standpoint, avoid repetitive links, such as the “click here” link, which provides no information as to the destination page or content. Seeing that link outside of context provides no information. Avoid blinking text or page elements. Allow the users to control this, as repetitive blinking can potentially cause a seizure in some ailments. Also allow users to use the site and enter or control information with additional devices other than a mouse or with modified keyboards.

Planning accessibility makes sense and it not an unreasonable expectation. Careful implementation of accessibility guidelines simply creates a better website presence that can also enhance your standing in the search engines, as well as connect with the greatest majority of web users.

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