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The American Foundation for the Blind has debuted its new Web site, designed to be a portal for the 10 million visually impaired Americans largely shut out of Internet use.

AFB bills the site as a way to prove to the industry that Web sites can be both attractive and accessible to people with disabilities.

Most Web developers now immediately revert to text-only versions of a Web site when trying to accommodate users with disabilities, AFB officials say.

"But the biggest problem with industry today is it hasn't a clue that accessibility should be important or how to make a Web site accessible," says Carl Augusto, AFB's president and chief executive officer.

AFB's new site, redesigned by Interliant, wraps in limited electronic-commerce functionality. Specifically, users will be able to purchase special books online through the site and receive shipments from Amazon.com.

Not a Gateway

But AFB for now has stopped short of serving as a gateway for blind users to purchase merchandise off mainstream e-commerce sites that are often not outfitted for use by people with disabilities.

"Our major underlying initiative is to get all Internet companies fully accessible and to avoid the middleman, so blind or visually impaired users can go to any site," Augusto says.

The key to making a Web site accessible without reverting to less-exciting text versions is to think through the layout and design of the site, says David O'Neill, senior director of consulting and professional services for Interliant.

"There are many things that can be done in terms of laying out a page in ways that it can best be read by certain technologies," O'Neill says.

Blind Web users often rely on add-on devices such as screen readers and synthetic speech devices, which can be confused by traditional Web pages that flow from left to right, O'Neill says.

Accessibility Required

AFB's push to make its Web site an example of how to dual-purpose Web development for both mainstream and disabled users dovetails with a new federal government effort to outfit its disabled workers.

Sweeping new rules contained in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act issued last month require government technology vendors to supply accessible alternatives to everything sold to federal agencies.

Government officials and advocates for the disabled community hope the rules will spur more vendors to consider ways to make products more accessible during the development stage.

Section 508 also mandates that the federal government's Web sites be made accessible to people with disabilities.

"We think a great outcome of Section 508 will be the private sector's ability to compete and market on the accessibility value-add," says Paul Schroeder, who heads government affairs for AFB.

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