Summary

HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 accommodate the needs of many visitors by providing three different approaches to website design. Hopefully, you now realize that the needs of your visitors also can affect the approach you use in your website design. The key is to anticipate those needs and try to address them as broadly as possible. Not every site has to be filled with multimedia that implements the latest and greatest web technologies. On the other hand, certain topics almost demand higher levels of page design. Listen to the needs of your visitors when you design your pages, and you'll keep them coming back.

Even though accessibility issues ostensibly affect only a small percentage of web users, they should not be ignored. Many accessibility-related improvements actually improve the web experience for most users. Leaving out disabled users by not accounting for them in your designs is inconsiderate, and can often be a poor business decision as well. Adding accessibility features to an existing site can be challenging, but when you build new sites from scratch, making them accessible can often be done with little additional effort. If I've convinced you of the importance of accessibility in this lesson, you'll probably want to dig into the resources listed previously for more information.