I agree with Ben – it is important to get those who understand accessibility involved from the start. It works out cheaper in the long run than trying to retro-fit accessibility, and if the right people are involved then it shouldn’t delay the development process.

Re Ben’s point about working under the radar… I think that until there is a high profile legal case then few companies will care too much about accessibility.

Using efficient, semantic HTML throughout all their web pages is what would actually help users. And I don’t just mean the 1-3 Google sites most people use. I mean all of them.

They have the ability to write important pages with good HTML. It’s easy to make accessible websites when you hire the right people. So it seems they choose not to do this in nearly all their projects.

As you and I and all other accessibility professionals know, building accessibility in from the start is the best way to do it. Often it is the only way to do it since managers will rarely authorise major work on a product they thought was already complete.

Accessibility continues to be led by enthusiastic do-gooders, often working under the radar. It continues to be a somewhat guerilla movement, despite the high-level standards and laws.

(I’m assuming this form accepts HTML links since the footer says it’s WordPress.)