Who said the web is easy?

I have a bone to pick with some fancy pants artist Web developers. But before I go too far, let me say clearly that web development (i.e., programming) and website design (i.e., how pretty the pages look) are two totally and completely different things. Programmers rarely stray into the page design arena... but page designers frequently rummage their way around programming. That's because the distinction between designing a webpage and writing a program that supports a webpage are difficult for the uninitiated to distinguish.

Now that I'm done with my editorial, let me tell you what my real issue is. When I had my stroke, I lost my ability to read -- completely. Letters on a page which is pretty pictures. I did not lose my ability to spell! If you tell me award I can tell you how it's spelled. If you spell a word out loud to me, I can tell you what it is. It is merely the visual recognition of letters on a page that was impaired by the stroke. I have to limit, after a year and a half, I'm probably a first or second grade reading level. That's a far cry from the 1000 words a minute that I was able to read and comprehend before my stroke. But, being philosophical, it's better than not being able to read it all. And, there is some hope for the future that I may get my reading back to an eighth, ninth or even 10th grade level, with a lot of hard work.

Back to the basic issue. There are two ways to build a website. I will call them the right way and the wrong way.

Let's examine the wrong way first. If you want to alienate some 10 to 15% of the market that is handicapped, or to be PC -- otherly abled (?) -- that make webpages with pictures. If I go to something approaching 80% of the sites on the web, the software on my computer is capable of reading the page out loud to me. There are pretty pictures, pretty backgrounds, all that stuff. However, text is text. You have literally thousands of fonts to choose from, and a palette of zillions of colors. Why in gods name would anyone take their text and make it a graphic image?

Now let's talk about the right way. it's really pretty simple. Text is text. Graphics are graphics. A graphic with some text on it should be just that, a graphic with some text on it. Only in some very we are instances -- computer-based games, advertisements, stuff like that -- is it permissible to make the text graphic.

Now here's a big beef with Apple Computer. I like the iPhone. I like your web apps. However, I hate it when I look at the Apple developer site on my PC. My PC software won't read Apple type! It's as if every Apple rendered site in the world is a graphic. I have an iPod. I'd love to put more stuff on it. I'd love to read the documentation. Alas, I can't. Apple, you're so good at user interfaces... why do you forget about us poor schmucks who have trouble reading a computer screen? This is supposed to be your thing! please, do something about it.