Building Accessible Websites [Paperback]

With this in mid its unfortunate that this book could not take advantage of advances made in the last year. I was hoping that the most recent book would be the most up to date and cover topics like Flash MX. (Especially given the delyed release date)

The technical coverage of HTML is probably the best I've read, with good, clear examples of accessible XHTML code. However to simply ignore the issues raised by the use of JavaScript within HTML pages, is sadly dissappointing. These are exactly the fuzzy grey areas that need to be in a book like this.

The main problem I had with this book is that it is trying to cover too many bases. The blurb would have you believe that it contains information on how to mange accessible web projects, but to concentrate so heavily on code examples, contradicts this.

What we really need is less examples of how to code and more examples of how these projects have been managed and run successfully in other organisations so that we have a chance of doing the same. I was so unimpressed with what was missing from this book, that I'm probably being unfair to the good stuff.

Conclusion: If this book was released last year, it would have been essential reading. If you've already read other books about coding accessibility for the web, you can probably afford to miss this one. If you're looking for a good introduction to web accessibility issues, you can do no better.

More than anything else, when you're trying to make a website accessible, you need to put yourself in the shoes of the end user. If your experience is limited to a passing acquaintance with the phrase 'screen reader', and your knowledge to the fact that text sizes can go up as well as down, you need further insight. You need someone to help you consider (for example) what is possible if you can't really use a mouse. This book covers these issues and more both comprehensively and entertainingly.

Whilst the book doesn't cover making JavaScript accessible (except for a few references) if you are a programmer the background you get from this book should put you in the right frame of mind to adapt your scripts. If you tend to just use other people's scripts as-is you're going to need further help. In every other way this work is ambitious and thorough. The ENTIRE CONTENT of the book is also on the book's CD-ROM in html format. So, if the text size in the book is too small, you can open it in your browser and whack it up to massive. If you have a screen reader, you can get it to read the book aloud.

A thin book, crammed with insight, information, opinion and humour. If you want to make your website great, you need this book.