.

A L S O__T O D A Y The gene genie By Jeffrey Obser Jeremy Rifkin's new book, "The Biotech Century," warns of a genetic-bazaar future (05/01/98) - - - - - - - - - - T A B L E__T A L K Do programmers think differently than the rest of civilization? Join the discussion on hackers in Table Talk's Digital Culture area - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Groveling for dollars By Greg Costikyan Bugs, babes and booze: For game developers rustling up financing, there's a million potholes on the road to success (05/01/98) The 21st Challenge No. 8 Results By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau (05/01/98) Let's Get This Straight By Scott Rosenberg Playboy and Playmate play a game of meta tag. (05/01/98) Starship trouper By Janelle Brown Douglas Adams' new "Titanic" game is just the tip of a multimedia iceberg (04/30/98) Getting MUDdy with Xena and Hercules By Moira Muldoon A new online game lets fans of the TV shows explore their textual fantasies (04/30/98) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE 21ST ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -BY MIKE BRITTEN | What happens if you browse the Web, but first turn your monitor off? Poof! Hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital, R&D and relentless hype -- not to mention human creativity and effort of monumental proportions -- disappear. When you can't see what's going on, all of the Web's hippest, state-of-the-art, supposedly life-enhancing technical innovations -- spinning widgets, dancing logos, animated come-ons, scrolling gossip, streaming video clips and interactive shopping forms -- become instantly meaningless. As any student at Gallaudet University will be happy to tell you, with today's growing emphasis on multimedia, the ability to hear can't hurt when it comes to accessing information, either. Then consider what a bitch it can be even for a sighted person who might have any one of countless possible mobility problems to position a mouse cursor over the word "here" in "click here." Making Web pages accessible to the widest imaginable population was always a part of the intentions of its original creators, who dreamed of a universal Net-based information medium. But as the Web has grown commercialized, accessibility has often taken a back seat to proprietary schemes or been forced to play second fiddle to extravagant designs. I recently followed a link to an essay with a title that intrigued me: Could Helen Keller Read Your Page? Terry Sullivan, co-author of that article, is the Webmaster for All Things Web, a site that focuses on design issues and usability engineering. When I contacted him via e-mail, Sullivan did not mince words: "These days, most Web sites are not only NOT designing for accessibility, they are designing for INaccessibility, by focusing most of their efforts on presentation, rather than content. Almost everyone will have some trouble with such sites at some point in their lives." That last sentence is a reference to the code word that millions of members of the disabled community use when referring to the rest of the world: "TABs," or "temporarily able-bodied" persons. And since most TABs, as Sullivan points out, "will likely suffer some physical impairment (particularly vision impairment) sometime in their lives," the issue of universal access to the Web touches every current and future consumer of it. "It's unbearably tragic that so many designers are so shortsighted," says Sullivan. N E X T_P A G E | But what is "accessibility," anyway -- and who defines it?