Most website commissioners are not interested in Web Standards or Web accessibility - that is clear from the results of DRC Research carried out in the UK in 2004. The research highlighted the appalling lack of accessibility of most UK web sites - with 81% labelled by researchers as 'impossible' to use by many disabled people.

So if you are a web developer, don't waste your time trying to get clients excited by your ethical approach. Instead just get on with the job of creating accessible standards based websites -- and tell them you use development methods that will help them attract more visitors -- and help them make more money.

Use Web Standards -- money can be saved and money can be made

Pages built using web standards tend to be smaller and they tend to load quicker. This leads to the first and most obvious saving -- lower bandwidth costs.

What is not so obvious, however, is that faster loading pages can also generate additional traffic and revenue. For example, when Multimap.com redesigned their site using web standards they estimated they saved 40,000 Gb of bandwidth per year -- but they also found that their advertising revenues increased. The quicker loading pages encouraged people to spend more time on the site - and consequently advertising revenues went up.

Accessible websites make more money

Julie Howell, Digital Policy Development Officer at the RNIB, talking about one of Tesco's websites -- a website designed to provide easier access for blind and visually impaired people,

"Many fully-sighted people find Tesco