[Web4lib] RE: Web technologies and public access

[Andrew]

Stewart,

PHP is mainly a server-side scripting language so there's no inherent 
accessibility issue with it. Poorly designed static web pages will 
continue to look bad when done dynamically with PHP and vice versa for 
well-designed pages.

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI

Stewart Baker wrote:
> Having just recently given a presentation at a job interview for a web
> design job, I thought I may as well comment on this thread.
>
> While it's certainly true that "content is king" when it comes to the
> internet, I can't accept the statement that design is thus completely
> unimportant.  A good design, far from being something people will just
> coolly sit back and say "That's a nice design" about, is what will make or
> break your website.  Websites which are well designed with the users in mind
> make it far easier to 1) get to and 2) understand the content than sites
> which are just text thrown on a page with little to no formatting.  This is
> the same in business, and other forms, of writing: If your content is not
> well laid-out it doesn't matter how beautiful or concise it is, because
> nobody will read it anyway.  (See someone else's example of shakespeare in
> garish colours)
>
> On an aside, does anybody know how PHP is treated under ADA compliance
> stuff?  My gut feeling is that it's not a problem as long as the PHP's HTML
> output is properly done, but I'm not certain on this.  Somebody at the
> interview mentioned that things like javascript or flash can sometimes cause
> problems for the visually impaired, so I've been meaning to ask someone
> about PHP as well.
>
>