Interview - Kynn Bartlett

Kynn Bartlett wears many hats. He co-founded a successful Web design company; he is an author, an educator, and public speaker; and he's also a very witty person. Most of all though, Kynn is renowned for his expertise in Internet Accessibility.

He talked recently with SitePoint about usability and accessiblity, and argued the case for the role of design in supporting these two objectives...

SitePoint: Hi Kynn, thanks for agreeing to this interview. I would like to start off by asking you about your roots. What made you decide to work with new media? And, specifically, how did you get involved with the topic of accessibility?

Thanks for this opportunity; I'm pleased and honored by the chance to shed some light on what will be an important issue for Web developers for years to come.

I've been using the Internet for years now, since 1986; to my embarrassment, I recently came across my earliest Usenet posts. When the Web was developed, I was working as a graveyard shift junior sysadmin for a special effects studio. My job literally consisted of putting in a backup tape, typing a shell command, taking it out two hours later, and repeating the process until the day's FX work was done. This gave me plenty of time to explore new technologies at 5 am, and I became first the defacto and then official Webmaster for Rhythm and Hues studios in 1994.

In 1995, I quit R&H to work for an Orange County Web development company which no longer exists; after a few months, I told my wife Liz, "If these clowns can do it, anyone can." She responded with "Well, why can't we?" That September, we started Idyll Mountain Internet and Liz still runs it today; she has two employees and they've designed and hosted over one hundred sites.

While learning the ropes of professional Web development, the mailing lists run by the HTML Writers' Guild proved quite useful to me, and in June 1996 I was asked to join the Governing Board. Little did I know that I'd make a commitment of more than 5 years which would see the HWG grow from 6,000 to 125,000 members, or that I would end up serving as President not once but three times.

An activity I pushed hard for -- and succeeded in putting into action -- was the Guild's membership in the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as the first and only association of working Web developers to join the W3C. This is an important role, as all other W3C members, shaping the future of Web standards and the evolution of the Web, represent either commercial or academic interests. The voices of the front-line Web developers weren't being heard, and the HWG's membership in the W3C offered a conduit for them to make their opinions known.

As a W3C member, the HTML Writers Guild could appoint volunteers to contribute their time and expertise to working groups. When the opportunity came to get involved in the Web Accessibility Initiative, I made a commitment to not only use the HWG's membership to advance Guild causes in the W3C, but also to educate our own members regarding the benefits of an accessible approach to Web development.

This commitment led to the establishment of the Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education (AWARE) Center, as well as my online courses in Web accessibility. Both of these continue to be supported by the International Webmasters Association, which took over the operations of the HWG after a merger in summer 2001. This April is the fifth annual HWG (now HWG/IWA) Web Accessibility Month, a month-long focus on the need for accessibility awareness by Web developers.

SP: What influenced you most within the field of accessibility?

When it comes down to it, I suppose it's a simple concept of fairness and justice, as naive as that may seem in this day and age. It's simply the right thing to do.

Now, once I've said that, I've got to define what exactly I mean when we're talking about Web accessibility. Ultimately, it's not a set of checklists, dos-and-don'ts, and arcane rules on tags; it's closer to a process and a methodology, but really it's a mindset. That mindset says, "the Web is an adaptable medium, allowing each person to access information in the way that best suits his or her needs." As I define Web accessibility, it's about inclusion and embracing diversity. It's about caring that your audience -- no matter who they are and what they can or can't do -- is able to use your site.

Web accessibility is really a human rights issue. As more and more aspects of daily life -- from shopping to news to voting -- move online, it's crucial to ensure that we don't inadvertently exclude those people who can most benefit from this ongoing revolution and evolution. A user who can't drive to the store has a lot to gain from an online grocery service; a user without the ability to read the printed newspaper will find great value in online editions. These are real benefits of the Internet age, and they're often taken for granted by those who don't have major disabilities.

If you've got a mindset that includes those users as a valid part of your user group, you will design a site that they can use -- you can't help it. It becomes second nature to ensure accessibility for a wide audience. If, however, you don't include those users -- either because you haven't thought about it (ignorance) or because you simply don't care (malice) -- it's very likely you'll construct a Website which represents serious barriers for your users.