Accessibility First!

Designers for the 21^st century world wide web need to separate presentation from content. It's important for large website maintenance, as well as in the transition to XML as the means of storing web content. But how do we teach this to students? It's problematic because the current primary mode of web access, i.e., through a visually-based browser, doesn't enforce this distinction—it's possible to mark up text poorly, yet have it display properly. Faced with two different ways of marking up text that yield the same visual result, students feel that if they don't look different, then they aren't really different. They view the content/presentation distinction as an abstract theoretical construct which has little practical consequence.

Marking up web content so that it is accessible to visually impaired computer users provides a tangible and motivating context for addressing these issues. In current texts, accessibility is presented as an additional topic ancillary to the primary focus of the course. If, instead, we bring accessibility the forefront, several salutary consequences follow: it gives students a concrete practical reason for respecting the content/ presentation distinction; it gives students a practical model for making the content/presentation distinction when faced with marking up a document; and it results in web pages accessible to visually impaired computer users. Everybody wins.

• Slides from the Talk
• The Poster

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