Rating: 
Summary: No More Excuses.
Review: Two new words have joined the vocabulary of web designers in recent years - usability and accessibility. You will often come across them used in tandem. Usability really became an issue when Jacob Nielsen infamously denounced Flash as 99% bad. Accessibility became a priority for web developers working on government projects after Section 508 was brought into law in the United States. Accessibility became an issue in Australia during Maguire vs SOCOG in 1999, when a blind man filed a complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) that neither Olympic Games tickets purchasing information nor the souvenir programme were available in Braille. Most importantly he alleged that the SOCOG website was not accessible, and to make it so would have been well within budget. SOCOG was found to have discriminated against the complainant and damages were awarded against the organization. Accessibility is now a civil rights issue. It is also not that difficult to implement on a website, once you learn how it can be done. This excellent book, Constructing Accessible Web Sites, teaches you all that and more. It is the first on its subject, and will not be the last, but it is damned a good beginning. All eight co-authors have been pioneers in the field of accessibility, and Glasshaus deserves praise for having assembled such a team. They cover more than website accessibility - their expertise extends to the accessibility of web design tools themselves. An apt reminder that the web is as much about reading as writing, for writers as much as readers, a real medium of two-way communication. All websites can now be made accessible to varying degrees, even Flash websites since Flash MX, as Macromedia Senior Product Manager for Accessibility Bob Regan demonstrates in Chapter 10. So there are no excuses for failing to add increased accessibility, and usability for that matter, to that new project you are just about to commence. Ensure you have a copy of Constructing Accessible Web Sites at hand when you begin. And also take a look at another equally essential reference on the subject due out any day now, Joe Clark's Building Accessible Websites. Accessibility is the newest and most necessary website building skill. There are no excuses now.
Rating:
Summary: The Definitive Book
Review: We all know it's the right thing to do, but how to do it? I was initially sceptical - having read many worthy explanations of the need for accessiblility which were weak on practical solutions. Well, this book blew me away. It goes through all the practical information, all the legal stuff, even a chapter on Flash MX accessible authoring (which was interesting, if a little brief). This book is set to be *the* work for years. I doubt that this one could be bettered, though. --This text refers to the Paperback edition
Rating:
Summary: A worthy goal, an excellent guide
Review: Web usability has become a big [and important] topic in web design these days. Thankfully, its lesser-known sibling, web accessibility for disabled users, is now coming into its own right as a necessary design skill. Constructing Accessible Web Sites will be extremely useful to the nuts-and-bolts people who actually design and code sites, but, as importantly (if not moreso), it gives an excellent overview of current laws and standards for the higher-ups who authorize and budget for site design. The chapter on organizational strategies for accessibility is a must-read for anyone who has any responsibilities regarding web design, implementation, or retrofitting sites to meet legal (and moral) obligations for accessibility. The book is loaded with code samples, screen shots, and useful commentary on why things don't work for those with disabilites, and how to fix them so they work better for everyone. Particularly useful is a scorecard comparing authoring and design tools' accessibility authoring functionality and compliance with standards (Section 508, WCAG). If you are involved in the design, creation, or maintenance of web sites, and you have clients -- and that would be just about every site, whether your site is an intranet, extranet, or public Internet site -- you really need this book. You owe it to yourself to own this book and make your life -- and the lives of web users with disabilities -- much, much easier. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: You need this book
Review: What a great book! I like to read computer books from the beginning and follow the content rather than just jumping into the middle and floundering around. And I wasn't sure when I started reading this book whether I would actually get to the end, or just give up in the middle of the rather long introduction and overview of the law. However, once I got into Chapter 3 I didn't put it down again until I finished it. Those of us lucky enough to have all our faculties working properly don't realize just how tough it must be for the less fortunate who have problems with vision or movement. After putting this book down, I spent the next two days fixing my own sites. You really do have to do the same now - not just for legal reasons, but because it will make you a good citizen on the Web as well. Get your credit card out...
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