Access and Accessibility

Encouraging greater Access to information is fundamental to the Web. Ensuring Access takes work, and puts a greater burden on developers and content providers. But focusing on access offers the potential for far greater application for information.

The term accessibility is generally used around the web to point to the idea that information needs to be available to folks that are impaired (often—though not exclusively—the idea that blind and low-vision users not be kept from primarily visual information and functionality, and similarly that deaf people should not miss out on content or functionality that is delivered auditorily). I don’t mean to say that that encompasses the whole of the matter. But that is a great deal of it.

Because of the additional burden that is associated with the term accessibility, it is often used with disdain. I prefer to use the word Access. Ensuring access is about providing information to any user, or device regardless of potential modes of access¹.

Potential variables when thinking of the mode of access include the following:

  • devices
    • less-automated (e.g desktop computers, phones, tablets, video-game consoles, and much more)
    • more-automated (search engine spiders, feed readers, link checkers, validation services, and more)
  • browsers
    • modern (e.g. Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Firefox, and others)
    • older or obscure (e.g. Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3, Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer 4, iCab, Mosaic, and others)
    • niche (e.g. Lynx, Jaws, WebbIE, and others)
  • personal impairments (as noted above: vision and hearing, but also cognitive, orthopedic, and more)

Offering information to people and devices as broadly as possible includes the proper use of semantic markup (like RDF or microformats) to allow search engines to grab valuable information from your site so that they can display your phone number and address inline with their results. The use of good mobile markup will ensure that your content “bubbles up” higher in search engine rankings (especially when offered to mobile devices). Proper nesting of link lists will ensure that users of special browsers (like Lynx) are able to