We Media was the first to launch, going live in December 1999. Marti McCuller, chief executive of accessibility consultancy Agassa Technologies, knows how behind industry and government are on this issue. She's blind, and depends on the awareness and sensitivity of Web designers for access to the Information Superhighway. Today, the Internet is laden with graphics. Graphics don't have to be invisible to blind people.
Designers can embed invisible textual descriptions behind the images.
McCuller, who sits on a World Wide Web Consortium committee dedicated to setting model accessibility standards for the Internet, said she is heartened by the government's willingness to grapple with the issue. She agreed that it's bound to lead to more access overall for people with disabilities. Larry Goldberg, director of the Media Access Group at public television station WGBH in Boston, sat on the federal advisory committee that was instrumental in shaping the regulations released in March by the Access Board, the small federal agency responsible for drafting and implementing the new accessibility standards. The Media Access Group works to make all media more accessible to people with disabilities. It was about to be released in the spring of 1995, when it came to be known there were a lot of access barriers.