Addressing Accessibility as Advocacy: Special Needs Users in Industry Web Development Processes

In scholarly discussions, industry practices and how they address accessibility are often not emphasized. As accessibility principles are not fully covered by usability heuristics, web accessibility standards, or assistive technologies and browser plug-ins, it is important to address accessibility in industry website development. This article discusses how accessibility is addressed during the industry process of developing websites for clients. We do this in order to raise issues for differently abled users (such as low-vision users) and to introduce a tentative framework for designers in industry to consider such issues in their work.