Just read the latest E-Access Bulletin from Dan Jellinek over at headstar.com and was interested to note (and so might you) of a new “Accessibility Boosting Campaign”.

A group that includes the British Dyslexia Association, launched the Well Adjusted Campaign, which aims to draw up a list of the top 10 reasonable adjustments that will improve the accessibility of web sites.

The campaign will consult with accessibility experts and the private sector to draw up good practice guidelines that are effective, but easy to understand. “We’re aiming at people who want to do it, but find accessibility scary and complicated,” said Sally Hayward of the 2080partners team.

All good stuff, but why am I left disappointed when I look at the quality of the markup at 2080’s website? — the xml prolog is presented to IE for starters, the lack of hover, focus and active states on hyperlinks for people using a keyboard to navigate by and finally the dangerous use of access keys. 2080’s site doesn’t work in Internet Explorer 7 and the OTT text widget doesn’t work on some of the options presented. I hope this is not another case of snake-oil salesmen.

If they haven’t started already, I hope that they are consulting with GAWDS and the fine people over at the Accessify forums.

Update: It would appear to be “another” Textic promotion. I won’t even give them link-love.

We really need to get the genuine experts and advocates (GAWDS and Web Standards Project) talking to these people and co-ordinating a not-for-profit campaign and website. If a company then comes along wanting to do the same thing they are encouraged by the approached national body to sign up to the existing national campaign.

We don’t need multiple campaigns, just a bloody great big one that is very well marketed with the likes of SOCITM, BSI, CBI etc (apologies for the very British view here).

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Shockingly bad redesign of the UK government’s Department of Trade and Industry website. Dan Champion, a fellow government web developer type reports on the gory details.

Ian Lloyd, he of many hats has been rather busy lately and today I hope he’s putting his feet up and enjoying the day with a chilled beverage of choice. A big round of applause and congratulations for his just-released SitePoint book entitled “Build Your Own Website the Right Way Using HTML and CSS“.

It’s a book for the absolute beginner who wants to do things properly, who wants to become truly skilled, rather than throw together a website for the sake of having one. Does that sound like what you’re after?

SitePoint will shortly have some preview chapters in pdf but the publicity machine is ahead of the game at the moment, so check Ian’s blog or SitePoint regularly for availability.

And if you go to a bricks-and-mortar book store? Be sure to pester the buyer that this is the book to stock for beginners.