The accessibility divide

Web designers are from Mars...

There's a surprising limiter to the deployment of accessible Web sites. It's not a lack of knowledge or legislation. It's not a lack of standards. It's not even a lack of awareness. (Though to be sure, all of these are factors.)

Although most people aren't aware of it, Web sites are, broadly speaking, built by two totally different types of people: Web designers and Web developers. At this point, some of you will be scratching your heads and thinking "what's the difference?" - bear with me, I'll explain.

Web designers think visually. They use visual software tools - usually Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive and Microsoft FrontPage. These tools have rich, graphical environments, with drag-and-drop features. Web designers are protected from seeing the underlying HTML code - and can concentrate on the design. (Designers are usually multi-skilled too, using other layout software, such as QuarkXpress or Adobe InDesign, to create designs for brochures and the like.) Their brief is visual - to make projects look great. The way they think and work is visual - and while some Web designers can read the odd bit of HTML, many can't. To them, HTML code is, well - code. They'd need an Enigma machine to crack it.

By contrast, Web developers think in code. They may use the same software to create Web sites - but they work by typing in code, rather than using in the graphical user interface. They're like Neo from The Matrix. They look at HTML and can instantly understand how it works and what it will look like. They pride themselves on writing the kind of clean, lean and well-structured code that Dreamweaver simply can't manage on its own. (Sorry, Macromedia, but it's true.) The flip side is most few developers lack, almost entirely, those qualities which Web designers possess in abundance. An understanding of fonts, colours, layout and creating impact - all of these are alien to the developer.

It's a great divide.

So, imagine a visually switched-on designer, briefed for the first time with making a Web site accessible. He or she browses to a few accessible Web sites, to find out more about the subject - (perhaps including the sites of those organisations responsible for promoting accessibility standards). It's a big turn off. Little or no design. Uninspired layout. Drab colours. "If that's what an accessible Web site has to look like", they say, "then forget it!"

Browse to any Web site, and it's not hard to see which type of person has created it. Lots of graphics, oodles of impact, great visual page layout, well-coordinated colours - that'll be a designer, then. No graphics other than the logo, dull colours, uninspired design, no idea of on-line brand - you guessed it, that's the developer's site.

Now let's look at accessibility.

It's a commonly held belief that accessible Web sites are dull. Sadly, it's a belief that, in reality, turns out to be mostly true. Many accessible Web sites are dull. Very dull. They're so dull that they turn Web designers against the idea of accessibility, because designers assume that to create an accessible Web site, all that they hold dear will have to be sacrificed. Well, try to see it from their perspective. They're designers - visual architects. They don't want to be churning out nondescript, bland excuses for a Web page.

And why are so many accessible Web sites so visually dull? Because they are mostly created by - yes, you guessed it - developers. No offence, guys, design isn't your strength. Designers went to college or university for the best part of half a decade to learn to do what they do. It's not something you just pick up on the hoof.

There is, of course, a direct flip side. The well-designed and most impactful sites are usually the least accessible. Why? Simple: you can't build a truly accessible Web site without rolling up your sleeves and messing around in the code. Whatever the marketing people from Macromedia, Adobe and Microsoft claim, you just can't build a really accessible Web site through the graphical user interface - you have to wrestle with HTML.

This type of coding is not easy stuff, either. Creating designs that use cascading style sheet positioning (instead of using tables for layout) makes many experienced developers weep, let alone designers. Accessibility isn't just a case of adding alt text (a text alternative to images). It requires a different page structure.

And while Dreamweaver, GoLive and FrontPage have reasonable support for cascading style sheets, it's a long way from being drag and drop. The same goes for adding in accessible elements to a Web page. The best place to do it is in the code.

(These Web tools may have accessibility checkers, but that's not the same as just getting the code right in the first place. And, while there is an accessibility add-in for Dreamweaver called Lift, it costs nearly much as much as Dreamweaver itself - and is buggy and slow. I know: I bought it, struggled with it and then gave up and started coding by hand.)

That's the great divide. It's not only a self-perpetuating divide, it's also a widening one. The greater the number of dull but accessible Web sites that are launched, the more entrenched the Web design community becomes in its views. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And the longer the world continues getting Web sites which are great visually, but pay no attention to accessibility, the more righteous Web developers become. Another self-fulfilling prophecy.

What about the poor clients who are caught in the middle of this culture clash? They want designs with lots of impact, but they want them to be accessible too. The crime here is that there is nothing inherent in HTML/XHTML or cascading style sheet positioning which says that they can't have it. A terrific Web site design can be accessible and an accessible Web site can have a terrific design.

Ideally, graphical design tools should create code that's lean and well-structured. Designers should be able to create a flowing three-column page layout in Dreamweaver without having to learn what - to them - is not just a foreign language, but a language from another planet. And accessibility should be built into Web-page creation tools - not bolted on and easily ignored. Well, it would be nice, but don't bank on it.

The bottom line is that the Web is not a brochure. Until Web design tools work properly in graphical mode, Web designers simply have to learn more about the HTML code that their tools create - they can't ignore what goes on under the bonnet forever. Designers and developers have to cross the divide, impossible though it may seem. And what better means to drive this process, than the buying power of the client?

Visually disabled people can campaign to get Web sites more accessible. Legislation might enforce accessibility. But it's the clients - the buyers - who can really make it happen. Clients should no more accept mediocre design than they should poor accessibility. They should insist on the best of both worlds and avoid the current trend to forgo great design to achieve accessibility (or vice versa) - because there is simply no need.

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