Accessibility … a brief history
In the beginning the Internet was a tool used by developers to share information, paying little heed to the end user. However, the commercial importance of the world wide web soon became obvious. Web site design became a profession, resulting in the rapid growth of weird and wonderful web sites.
Programmers were soon using languages like JavaScript to expand menus, introduce slide shows and scroll text on the screen. Designers were employed to make the web sites look attractive.
By this time, Internet Explorer and Netscape were becoming the two main browsers
for accessing web sites, but they translated web pages into viewable pages
in different ways.
This caused problems and developers either had to write the code twice (once
for each browser) or else just add “Optimized for Internet Explorer” at
the bottom of the homepage.
As the Internet continued to develop, visitor ‘hits’ became very important in marketing web sites. So developers were forced to redesign the sites to work across many different types of browser, ensuring a greater number of hits to the web site.
At present, the demand is for web sites to be more usable and accessible to all. Laws to enforce accessibility regulations have been passed in many countries, including the UK. These laws are extending the principle of equal and fair access to everyone, regardless of disability. This means that at last the Internet is catering for the many people who were previously excluded from it, due to their disabilities.
We hope that from now on web developers will design web sites that will work on many different browsers, including devices such as screen readers, Braille readers and text only browsers to help overcome disabilities.
