Web Accessibility:  Something for Everyone

Many designers shrug off complaints from the vocal minority of text-only browser users, or refuse to design their sites for accessibility with 2400 baud modems.

The problem is, a user running the latest version of Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator with a 56 Kbps modem may surf with graphics turned off if she's in a hurry. You never know whose navigation you're interfering with if you don't provide alternatives to your multimedia.

ALT is Your Friend

ALT tags let the text-only people know what they're missing, and may convince those with their graphics turned off to load the image.

The authors of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville, advocate using the ALT attribute to give some context to your pictures, especially when it comes to nav bars, buttons, and other graphical navigational elements. Providing a text alternative to a decorative graphic is polite, but providing an alternative to a graphical navigation bar is crucial. Without it, users who can't see your graphics -- or who refuse to -- will be stuck on your front page.

What do your users have?

Many sites employ JavaScript or CGI browser detection scripts to figure out which browser and version people are running, then serve a page that works. Usually this involves implementing a JavaScript, which you can learn how to do with helpful Web pages:

Browser and User Information Scripts from Infohiway

HTML Goodies

Builder.com Browser Detective

EchoEcho.com Browser Detection Script

d e v h e a d Resources:  Navagation Scripts -
Browser Redirect

Macromedia's DHTML Zone

Give Users a Choice

If you've got the time and resources to do so, you could make everybody happy by creating several versions of your site. This is a good way to show off your multimedia talent and still appease everyone lacking T-1 connections.

Jennifer Fleming, author of Web Navigation: Designing the USer Experience, points out a drawback to giving your users a choice: Some of your users might not understand your terms, or won't know how fast their connection is or what kind of browser they're using.

We've seen sites with as many as four bandwidth choices on the front screen, but you might be understandably reluctant to prepare four versions of your site. Compromise on two versions: A text-only version, and a graphical version.