Web Accessibility in Korea

The Web is an increasingly important resource in many aspects of life: education, employment, government, commerce, health care, recreation, and more. However, it is dangerous if these resources are only accessible through one specific web browser.

As you may know, most people in Korea use Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer supports incompatible features such as ActiveX and some proprietary JavaScript, and the problem is that many websites — including government sites in Korea — depend on those features.

Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. But it is an even bigger problem when a website can only be accessed through one specific browser. Right now, many Linux and Mac users in Korea cannot use internet banking, shopping malls, or streaming services, because those features are implemented with ActiveX.

Moreover, many websites still use the table tag to lay out their pages, so other browsers cannot render them the way Internet Explorer does. Instead of using tables for layout, we should use CSS and XHTML.

Fortunately, Firefox's market share is now growing, and more people are becoming aware of the web accessibility problem. I look forward to the day when I can browse any website with any browser.