Accessites — Removing and Preventing Web Barriers
Green-BeastMike Cherim has long been a champion of standards-compliant accessible website development. His efforts with Green Beast have received attention from and within the accessibility community. He is a master of development (particularly PHP) and supports his skillsets with formidable markup (usually to XHTML Strict) and a thorough knowledge of CSS (Cascading Stylesheets). He's also become a good friend and someone in whom I find a reciprocal, forthright, intelligent, honest and charitable relationship. He also enjoys a sharp sense of humour. In short, he's a buddy.
But this is not an unqualified accolade to a man in whom I find friendship and admiration; he also has set himself standards, not the aforementioned web sort, but those associated with discipline, morality and honour.
AccessitesSo ... let me draw your attention to Accessites. It is here Mike has recently focused his attention to construct a reference point, focus and tribute to developers whose initiatives have resulted in sparkling examples of bloody good website development.
Accessites rewards strong accessible development with more than just a mention; it recognises good markup but - where other accolade sites may fall short - also recognises efforts in usability and visual design. Webmasters are encouraged to submit their sites for appraisal against specific criteria with a view to receiving one of four levels of recognition: Notable Universal Design, Quality Universal Design, Classical Universal Design and Timeless Universal Design. Sites are graded against a number of checkpoints with points scored and accumulated to a maximum of 32 points, 17 being the minimum value for recognition at the Notable Universal Design level and a place in the showcase.
The Accessites team comprises 20 or so top-notch accessible developers whose voluntary efforts help not only to bring great design to the fore but also contribute to the growing visibility of accessible development.
