Whoever Said "Less is More" Wasn't Online

First I had to have an Idea. Then I had to have an idea and a website. Then I needed an idea, a web site and a blog. Then I needed an idea, a web site, a blog, and a myspace. Next I learned I absolutely had to have an idea, a web site, a blog, a myspace, and a facebook. Of course that wasn't enough; I really needed an idea, a web site, a blog, myspace, facebook, and twitter. And of course I've had linkedin all along. So what more could any entrepreneur need? Facebook fan page. That's right. Here and now, people. Livin' the dream.

Beauty vs. Barriers

With so little functional vision left the web has its limits for me. All the backgrounds, graphic buttons, Flash and fixed font sizes that make your design experience lovely render sites unusable for me. As a business decision when we set up aopstudios I commanded my web developer make the entire site accessible to screen readers and the outcome is black text on white background, a very retro, 1990s look.

Friends would gently ask, nudge and encourage "improvements," but I want the site to work for as many physical disabilities as possible. Access isn't an easy feat. A ramp to the door means nothing to a deaf person and a sign with an arrow doesn't offer guidance to a blind person. So although I understand that optimizing access gets really elemental, I also wanted a site that everyone could use.

Then I got the final, fateful nudge. In an email exchange with an artist who's a quad (and uses a silver dot on his forehead combined with an IR sensor to track his head movement so he can use a computer) he asked, "Hey, are you going to do something about that web site or is it supposed to look like that?"

Now Jen and Dean have been working to beautify and improve aopstudios. Maintaining a link to the screen reader accessible content and with its new consumer look and eComm component we'll be able to quell that haunting question, "... is it supposed to look like that?"

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?