The Washington Psychological Center (WPC) is a private practice consisting of five providers serving the D.C. area. We just finished building them a lightweight and elegant brochure web site to establish their initial presence on the web, attract new clients online, and disseminate common information.

Have a look at wpcdc.com!

A friend of mine works for a public advocacy law firm that often represents disabled folks who are denied access to services in the physical world. He said he realized recently that his firm’s web site itself is not accessible to many of these same people! So what does “accessibility” mean on the Internet? It’s an issue we discuss with our clients often, so I thought I’d give our take on it here.

My friend was not too worried about his site’s lack of accessibility, saying essentially that the Internet was inherently limiting and it would be a fool’s errand to try to make his site available for everyone. But therein lies the rub… “Accessibility” in web development does not mean “how can I make my photography web site politically correct for blind users”! Rather, accessibility (combined with other concepts like writing semantic and valid code) is a set of best practices that will make your web site available to as wide an audience as possible.

Yes, these best practices will allow blind and visually-impaired folks to interact with your site as best possible. They’ll also help people like me who want to maximize the browser and jack up the font size late at night when their eyes are droopy, or actually print one of your web pages. And don’t forget these other goodies… they’ll increase your site’s search engine optimization, ensure that your site works optimally on the steady stream of new user agents (browsers, mobile phones, etc), and make your site easier to maintain!

In short, writing accessible code is simply good web development. It’s a symbol of the “new professionalism” that we are excited to provide for our clients.