The internet is open and accessible for a majority of the world’s population. However, openness and accessibility are a spectrum. Information on the web is not one hundred percent open or accessible to all persons.
Openness
Presenting information on the web is powerful. This sense of openness allows viewers to actively read, watch and use the information as well as change it to benefit the publisher or themselves.
Why Openness?
Brad Frost speaks about how the web was built on open standards and is meant for everyone in his TEDx Talk Creative exhaust, the power of being open by default. He states, “It’s not about what you do or your published finished product it’s about what you enable other people to do.” Publishing information is just as beneficial for the people viewing it than the publishers themselves. Viewers can gather ideas to benefit their work and collaborate with the author to showcase the very best product. The publisher can receive modifications to their work and advice from a diverse audience. This forces the author to think outside the box when making decisions on what to share to the world.
How Openness?
Some people aren’t comfortable sharing an unfinished product because they don’t want criticism or harsh feedback. However, this is all necessary to present a successful product. Openness can be accomplished by designing within a software that allows viewers to collaborate with the author and come up with solutions to problems that come up along the way. Ideas can be tossed around, putting together the most beneficial information for the people reading or watching. For example, a publisher can post an accurate how-to video after they’ve collected information from other sources. This allows them to present the most efficient way of completing the action in the video.
Accessibility
The goal of publishing something on the internet is for people to access and benefit from it. The more people that engage with the work, the better it succeeds. Designing something in an accessible way means it can reach a much larger audience in a variety of ways.
Why Accessibility?
Equality is an important concept to think about when determining who accesses web designs. According to Ditte Hvas Mortensen and Frank Spillers from the article 3 Reasons Why Accessible Design is Good for All, there are legal, moral, and business reasons for designing for accessibility. In most instances laws require publishers to cast designs that are fully accessible, or they are at risk for lawsuits. The reason of morality references creating something that everyone, no matter their abilities, has equal access to. Lastly, broadcasting information on the web, in the most user-friendly way, helps designers expand their user base. Often, doing this for the benefit of disabled persons also has a positive effect on able people in completely different ways than intended; this is defined as the curb-cut effect. There are several more pros than cons to publishing accessible designs with the pro, “It’s just the right thing to do,” at the top of the list.
How Accessibility?
The specific organization of content on a website and the inclusion of written words from a video or presentation are examples of making content more accessible. The tool screenreader can not only help impaired people read screens but can also aid in navigating a website with ease (curb-cut effect). If the publisher did not include alternative text with an image on an article, then a visually impaired person would not be able to consume the information in the way that everyone else can. Including written text with a video helps the hearing impaired but can also benefit persons that have a hard time focusing. Using headers throughout a website allows the reader to efficiently find information but also allows listeners that are using screenreader to acknowledge that a different topic is being presented. With these extra steps information can reach and benefit all people in different ways.
