On the heels of a very different technology extravaganza, South by Southwest Interactive, I wanted to take a few minutes to do some sidelines commentary on the good Web accessibility work of a team of three Convians and our partner at Causeway Interactive.

Two weeks ago, Team ConAIR won the 2008 Accessibility Internet Rally (aka AIR Interactive) competition. AIR is an annual challenge to design and build new, highly accessible websites for Austin-area artists and musicians. The team created a new site for local duo Byrd and Street, which is worth exploring because it is both a) innovative in its accessibility, and b) generally groovy.

(Warning: Web Accessibility and AIR mavens among you can skip the background and head right on down to “what’s cool.”)

First, the challenge: The team was tasked with creating a new browsing experience for all visitors to Byrdandstreet.com – from users with disabilities, like vision, auditory, cognitive or motor impairments, to users accessing the site from slow Internet connections, or old browsers, or small monitors. The goal is a compelling online experience that’s flexible enough to accommodate everyone’s browsing needs.

As those of you who’ve tried this before know, it’s no easy task.

The approach: Team ConAIR team met with the Byrd & Street duo – musicians and artists who were ready to start publishing more of their songs and visual art online – to learn about what their ideal site should be and do, who their visitors are, their future plans. Then, the team sat down and developed an information architecture, visual design, and implementation plan, and started coding.

So, what’s cool: 

• Accessibility and good design are one and the same. If there was ever a doubt, Byrd & Street’s new design just goes to show that accessibility, usability, and enjoy-ability are not contradictory terms. It's visually compelling, clean, and moves the Byrd & Street brand in a new direction.
  
  
• There’s multi-media everyone can enjoy. Visitors can choose their sensory mode, either listening to songs or reading lyrics, or listen to descriptions of artist drawings instead of looking at them.
  
  
• The control is in the hands (or feet, or keyboard) of the users. Whatever your browsing needs are, you can “customize view” to display the site in a way that works for you. Want a larger text size, or a font that’s easier to read? Want to turn off visual styles and have your screen-reader (which is reading the page aloud to you) skip the navigation and get straight to the content? This is all built into the basic structure of the site.
  
  
• It’s navigable, readable, adaptable, and easy to use. And for the geeks among us, it’s XHTML Strict 1.0 that validates, and completely separates structure from presentation. This baby reads as well with styles disabled as it does in its full graphic glory – and offers some great alternatives for assistive technologies that the standard visitor would never encounter.

Check out Byrd & Street’s new site for yourself, and give a virtual huzzah for Team ConAIR on a job accessibly done.