Web accessibility: Something Really Smells Fishy


I will never forget the happiness I felt when I heard the news: a group of people proposed a handy Net for everybody. This event would have positive consequences for people who suffer from a motor or sensorial problem, since we couldn’t, up to that moment, surf through the Net. That was a great day and that piece of news reached all our mailboxes. Finally we were going to be able to use the Net like people who don’t have a physical problem, and add Internet like any other technical assistance.

Finally we were going to be able to use the Network like the rest of the people who don’t have a physical problem, and add Internet like any other technical assistance to our lives.
Not long after, the new W3C guidelines were in sight. Now it was uncommon to find an inaccessible site, and most of them were comprehensible for any screen reader or other technical assistance available on the market. Internet had stopped being an exclusive place only for some lucky people, and had become a universal tool where disabled people could also enjoy the services that this wonderful tool can offer.

Today most disabled users and people engaged in the topic are convinced that the future will be as follows: a Web that becomes more accessible each day, where the old problems will be fixed.

I really envy the optimism of the people who think that way, but I suspect that the opposite will happen. I believe that in the future very few things are going to advance in accessibility, and what is more serious, I believe it will get even worse.

For all those who feel this opinion is too fatalistic, something more goes here. I am convinced that the advances in web accessibility had more to do with chance than with the desire to make a Network for all. In my opinion the true reason of the great interest of webmasters in accessibility was called "Web optimization", and the coincidence between the spiders operation with the technical assistance for disabled. That is, webmasters were more worried about boosting their sites than allowing us to read their pages. In the process, and more by chance than by good intentions, disabled people got benefits.

But my theory is more dramatic even. I am sure that if the opposite had be necessary (to make an inaccessible page to boost a Web site to the top 10) the W3C guidelines wouldn’t have been regarded or even noticed.

For all those that do not agree with me, I propose that you do the following exercise. Get into the SEO forums or download any search engine optimization article, and take a look at the importance that these fellows give to accessibility. Then reread this article and tell me if you have not changed your mind.

However there is something more. People have been talking about Web 2 for a long time. It is about new applications, services and tools to make the Internet more attractive (and more profitable). Basically it is more dynamic, and adds more video, more colors, more animation, etc, etc, etc. But no one says that it is about accessibility. I could not find any articles where this subject was contemplated, or treated as a factor to consider at the time of developing a marketing strategy.
In my opinion, the future will bring a pretty dark scene for the disabled. New strategies of marketing and positioning the Web will be developed, and disabled people will get some advantage only in case any of these advances agree with our technical devices.
Which option do you think that a webmaster will choose: getting Targeted Traffic or allowing a blind guy access to a service?

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