The need for web accessibility has forced users to take matters into their own hands. This is why I’m working with Evergreen on accessibility issues, precisely because that work needs to be done in order to ensure access across the potential student population. It’s also why I’m starting to integrate that work into my own web sites. The need to be HTML and CSS compliant is bigger than ever — if you’re not compliant, you run the risk of losing visitors left and right.

That doesn’t mean dropping Flash, Shockwave, Java, or any of those flashy technologies — but you do need to provide an alternative, or else you might end up with a site that people can’t navigate without downloading a plugin. Ironically, the site I link to there should be accessible by everyone — that’s the web site for my own audiologist.

The moral: run HTML and CSS vailidity checks on any web site you create, at a bare minimum. If you really want to be impressive, check out the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative or check out the links available through the University of Washington’s DO-IT program on accessible web design.