The Value of Accessibility
September 1, 2026
The word "accessible" can have multiple meanings. It can mean something that has the quality of being easy to understand or enjoy, as in, "her plays are usually accessible to a wide audience." It can refer to the physical ability to reach or obtain something, as in, "the new road will increase accessibility to the town."
In the context of websites, it has a very specific and measurable meaning: "the quality of being usable by everyone, including people with disabilities."
Back when the World Wide Web was first invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 and introduced to the public a few years later, websites were published on the internet using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). The first screen reader was introduced by IBM well before the World Wide Web existed, and a screen reader designed for the web, JAWS, was released for Windows in 1995 (the same year Windows 95 launched), enabling widespread use by the public.
So what's a screen reader? It's a software package that enables a user to navigate a document, such as a web page, without the need to see it. The very earliest web pages were readable with such software and were thus accessible to people who were blind. People with other disabilities benefited too, including those with mobility disorders who couldn't use a mouse or trackpad and instead relied on a keyboard to navigate a page, sighted or not.
The key point is that screen readers and other forms of assistive technology gave people with a wide range of disabilities access to the web since its earliest days.
Over the years, this situation changed. Other languages like JavaScript and CSS made it possible for designers to introduce powerful new functionality into web pages, such as mini-applications within a page like image carousels, new and complex ways of navigating, and lots of flashy advertisements. This created an enormous challenge for people with disabilities and the screen reading software they relied upon. Many of these new and complicated features were designed for people with good eyesight and no other disabilities. The simple HTML code the screen readers were designed to navigate would break when the code became overly complex.
The solution wasn't to build ever more complicated screen readers; it was to go back to basics and fix the code they relied upon. A new set of roles and attributes was formalized as Accessible Rich Internet Applications, or ARIA. These special elements could be added to HTML to enable screen readers to understand all the new complexities springing from JavaScript and CSS. HTML5 introduced landmarks, ways of labeling sections of code for even greater semantic understanding, helping screen readers and the people who used them navigate a site effectively.
A key concept underlying accessibility is the principle of equitable access. This means that systems relied upon by a diverse group of people must not exclude anyone based on their disabilities. Too often, web pages are designed without considering accessibility and need to be retrofitted to work well with screen readers.
As founder of New Worlds, I have long been a proponent of web accessibility, having learned about it in detail while working at Apple more than a decade ago. Apple had a great accessibility team, and after learning what I could from them, I went on to earn my Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA) credential (2019–2023) and focused on accessibility as my primary specialty for my last few corporate assignments. All websites I work on now must be accessible; it's not a bolt-on, nice-to-have addition, it's absolutely essential. It also forms a strong foundation for usability for all users.