Thanks for asking the question. I think clients should pay, and they should know what they are paying for and why.

I guess in some cases, if a Web designer feels there’s a good chance they’ll be doing more work (makeovers) for the client, I guess they could take the gamble and use accessible, standard code, charging a lower rate with a reasonable expectation that it will pay off in the long run?

Clients should pay – that good feeling when you turn CSS off and it all still works probably won’t put your kids through school!

Dee (who actually knows people who use adaptive equipment! And yeah, that’s how clients can test to see if a site’s accessible, have people who use adaptive equipment check it out.

Ask them to try and access their own site with just the keyboard. But these are accessibility issues (some are).

General Standards, the results come when they say “I want to change the menu from vertical to horizontal”. Snap easy.

I think clients should be more aware of what they are acquiring and (contractually) require certain standards from the designers. The clients will be paying the costs initially but will be getting a higher quality site in return.

The questions is how to empower the clients technically? How does a client know they actually got an accessible and standards compliant site? Certification?

However, some clients don’t think in the long term they think of the budget they have here, today. They will worry about the costs in the future when it arrives. They live for this financial year only.

But what does firm B care, they have been paid, the client has moved on. They are onto the next cookie cutter project, churning out the web sites making lots of money, expanding etc. You see they have a different mind set, its not for the long term.