I actually began my career in Web accessibility because of plain language. Way back in 1995 I was working for the Federal Government of Canada and I wanted to make a Web site to advertise services for my clients who were employees who had disabilities of one sort or another. I wanted to make sure that anybody could visit my site and get the information they needed. Because I had some doubts about whether people with certain disabilities could use the Web I did some research and discovered a marvelous set of guidelines developed by Dr. Gregg Vanderheiden and his crew at the University of Wisconsin's TRACE Center. However, being a self-taught and still very amateur Web programmer, I could barely make sense of that highly technical document. But, I needed to understand the concepts, so I stuck to it and finally managed to figure it out. At that point, and with some rather uncharacteristic foresight, I realized that Web accessibility for persons with disabilities was the sort of thing that would, sooner or later, become an issue, especially for governments. I also felt that few enough people would make the effort to decipher the excellent, but complex and technical TRACE document. Don't forget that in 1995 most Web developers were, like me, entirely self-taught and had got whatever knowledge we had mostly by copying the work of others who had managed to develop working Web sites. I felt there was a need for a "plain language" version of the Web accessibility guidelines to serve the average Web professional.

It turned out I was right on both counts: in the last few years governments around the world have made it law or policy to ensure their Web sites are accessible to all their citizens. And almost every Web master or content developer I have met demands less-technical but still-usable documentation on the whole subject of Web accessibility. I feel privileged to have had some role in causing the former and creating the latter. My efforts in the young field of Web accessibility caused me to get involved with the World Wide Web Consortium - the W3C - an industry consortium of over 400 companies whose business involves the Internet either as technical innovators, content providers or both. The consortium includes companies like Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, Compaq, America On-Line, Macromedia, and so on.

In 1997, recognizing the importance of keeping the Web accessible to everyone, the W3C started the Web Accessibility Initiative. A bunch of working groups were formed to address various issues including: accessibility of content, authoring tools, browsers, Web languages, etc. Because of my prior involvement in the field, I was asked to co-chair (with Dr. Vanderheiden) the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines working group. Our task was to produce, essentially, a standard that Web developers could follow to ensure that Web sites were accessible. We did that, and published them in May of 1999. The document outlines 14 major guidelines that developers must consider, and one of those deals with plain language.

What's wrong with the Web?

Now I'll tell you why the Web causes problems for some people. It's not having a disability that's the problem. Absolutely not! The biggest problem is that many Web sites and the information on them are in a form that simply can't be used by a lot of people.