One method is alternative interfaces. Monkeymedia, for example, provides three different versions of its site - one without graphics, one that uses still graphics and one that uses animation and sound. All three are selectable from the entry page, which is comprehensible no matter what kind of interface you've got. What a Tangled Web A more subtle problem is in the nature of the Web itself. By design, the Web is intended as an abstracting device that separates content, format and presentation.
Content comes from the Web page.
Presentation, at least in theory, comes from the browser responding to format instructions from the Web page. A Web page is not intended to provide complete control over what the user sees, and the very nature of the Web prevents this. The original theory was that Web content would be viewable on an enormous variety of devices, so actual presentation would be controlled by the browser. This approach works as long as you only have one or two browsers to worry about. That implies that we're going to have more than one symbol system for our interfaces, although we can hope those symbol systems will be related in a way that lets one reinforce the other.