The obvious functions and traditional aesthetics of stairs are so deeply imbedded within the traditions of architecture that the use of ramps is often seen as a detriment to good design. Indeed, a design devoid of any stairs would be quite dull. No one would expect that every front door be placed at the top of a gently sloped ramp, or that the controls for a car display Braille labels. Universal access means that an awareness of the needs of people with disabilities has affected the design. And that access is an integral aspect of a structure, not an obtrusive retrofit.
Universal design implies that a sensibility of inclusion has informed an entire composition.
For most readers of this article the Great Browser War is about Netscape vs. Microsoft s Internet Explorer. But for some, the question is whether to use a graphical browser at all. Lynx, the most common text based browser, predates both dominant GUI clients. Its existence is based on the idea that the Internet is a provider of Hyper Text , not a televisualized world encapsulated in narrow bandwidth. For blind users whose computer configuration includes software and hardware to verbalize text, such a browser is simply one more application whose content is audible text.