Maximum Accessibility: Making Your Web Site More Usable for Everyone

A Different Approach to Design

Designing for maximum accessibility often means approaching your projects in a different way than many other designers. For example, many Web designers tend to start with an image in mind—once they have a rough idea of the site’s subject and purpose, they start working to develop the right “look and feel.” In fact, customers may come to a designer with little more than a sense that they want a site that looks a certain way—something contemporary, say, something that shows the world that they’re smart, hip, competent, cutting-edge. . . .

But good design is accessible design. We saw over and over again in our user experience chapters that when design begins with look and feel, it usually ends as bad design, meaning ...