Lots of Choices, All Unsatisfying

I recently had an artist gently ask, "are you, um, going to do something about that web site?" The Art of Possibility looks lost in the 1990s – by design.

The site serves three constituencies: the trade, our customers; the general populace that takes an interest in art and disability; and the artists who seek out information on ways to share their work. Each constituency comes to us with a different motivation and each has a different expectation. To have as accessible a site as absolutely possible, with scalable fonts, no confounding rollovers or Flash (the world's most inaccessible web tool ever), we've sacrificed pretty.

The design sings with ease of use, fast loading pages and information at your fingertips, but does it stun the visitor with its beauty? Sigh. That's what led that artist to ask about my plans for the site. Atop the design conundrum we have the looming Orphan Works bill which could cause all artists to frantically redesign their public presence in a flurry of artistic self-defense. (The Orphan Works legislation essentially privatizes copyright law, sort of like hiring Blackwater to be your country's military.)

So I am open to suggestions! How do I maintain super-high accessibility, meet the speed of commerce, and also introduce our work to a general audience?