thought it was time for a proper post and Accessibility is still quite a ‘hot topic’ in web design. Some people love it, others loathe it. I am more on the ‘love’ side…most of the time!

Accessibility is often confused with usability. The main difference being that Usability considers how ‘usable’ a website is - how intuitive the navigation, how easily users can find what they are looking for. Accessibility involves making sure that all content is accessible by all users, whether they use a screen reader to have the website read out to them or have javascript turned off.

Generally one works in the others favour. Accessible websites are more usable and vice versa. And while it can be fiddley making sure you have what you need surely it pays off in the end? Especially if your website is to provide a service or information.

It does amaze me how many people (and by people I mean designers and developers) who don’t make their sites accessible, despite the fact that it is in fact law, because they feel it curbs their creativity. If you are a good developer even accessible sites can be creative, sexy and a little bit different!

Tags: Accessibility, Usability

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 10:23 am and is filed under Accessible Design, Usable Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.