I came across an article in Design Week on 11th Dec 2008 regarding the new BSI draft standard on web design and accessibility. What was interesting was a reference to a microsite design for Save the Children which couldn’t be made completely accessible because “the client wanted a design that conveyed its message powerfully, rather than a completely accessible one”. And the Strategy Director at the agency responsible was also quoted saying how restrictive accessibility guidelines are from a design point of view.

Having had a look at the microsite what seems clear is that the one of the biggest problems with designing accessible websites are the agencies & designers working on these projects.

We would expect a charity like Save the Children to be completely on board with accessibility so its surprising to hear that they chose a powerful design experience over a completely accessible one. But more importantly we would have told them they could have had both a powerful design experience that was completely accessible.

There is nothing on the Save the Children microsite that couldn’t have been made accessible. What’s probably happened is that the agency, designers or both just don’t know how to do this. Here are a few things that might have helped provide a powerful design experience that was accessibile at the same time:

sIFR - rich accessible typography for the masses
This would have enabled the text that introduces what the website is about to be rendered in the same font but in an accessible fashion

Javascript alternatives for image effects
Techniques like these could have been adapted to produce accessible panoramic images with hotspots

Making online video accessible
Some good information here about how to make video more accessible

Alternative text
Strangely, the microsite is missing this too. Oh dear!

As the expression goes, knowledge is power, and this is really true of web accessibility. Of course accessibility has an impact on design and arguably it does create more work, however, it cannot be ignored.

There are many techniques that can be adopted to produce visually engaging website designs that are accessible. If you know about them, that is.