Have You Got the X Factor? Building Websites for Mobile and Disabled Users

Last weekend saw the first ever online conference for web professionals <head>. Spread over three days roughly 80 speakers from different timezones hung out with delegates in virtual rooms speaking on just about any topic you can think of that is web related.

I was all too happy to talk about the cross overs between designing web pages for people with disabilities and people browsing on mobiles and other devices. This is something I've long been interested in and one of the reasons why I joined Opera as one web really should fit all. In the talk I look at standards and how these underpin the web making it work for anyone anywhere as well as give some practical examples of shared issues and websites. What can't be stressed enough is that if you're already building web pages with accessibility in mind then you're a long way to accommodating mobile users and vice versa. What's more you can also use Opera Dragonfly to check web pages as well as remotely debug pages for mobile access. It's a win, win.

A copy of the presentation Have you got the X Factor? Building websites for mobile and disabled users can be downloaded for more information. It's also worth looking at the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative resources on web content accessibility and the mobile web. If you're still not convinced that users of your site are mobile users then check out our State of the Mobile Web reports that highlight trends towards using social networks and generating content on mobiles as well as looking at niche websites (bird watching anyone?).

Thanks to all who tuned in and thanks for all your questions and comments. For people who had tickets for the conference you should be able to catch a recording soon and if you didn't check back on the <head> site for details on how to access recordings.