Friday 3 December 2010

Web accessibility - a new community tool

I've just discovered fixtheweb.net which, if it proves successful, will be an excellent initiative improving website accessibility and the online experience of disabled users.

It's a two step process:
  1. Disabled users report sites they've had difficulties with.
  2. A community of volunteers liaise with website owners to raise awareness of the issues and help to resolve them.
I do wonder how much can be achieved with group of volunteers. The social web has achieved much in recent years but this volunteer process goes way beyond writing a quick review or reposting a link or whatever. Seems like quite a commitment.

But nevertheless, it's a great idea and deserves every success. Investigating the site today I see that so far:
  • 225 websites have been reported
  • 25 website owners informed
  • 22 of these owners have acknowledged
  • 11 of them have fixed the problems highlighted
So already, that's 11 more accessible websites out there and that can only be a good thing!

Fix the Web

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