An Icelandic software company named Hugsmiðjan recently introduced a ground breaking new service aiming at increasing web accessability for all web users. The service is aptly named stillingar.is wich I'm going to translate right now as settings.is.
Hugsmiðjan already has a good reputation here in Iceland for it's user centered approach to web development and strict focus on standards and accesibility. It's flagship product Eplica CMS powers over 200 Icelandic websites, including the web of the government offices of Iceland (www.stjr.is). Simply put - they really know what they are doing.
The way stillingar.is works is that any web user can define for himself the settings he's most comfortable with. He can choose from any combination of selected fonts, background and font colors, font height and line and font spacing. Websites that subscribe to the service retreive this information automatically from a central database. So each web user only has to define his settings once (he can of course edit them any time he wants) and then use those same settings on many webs.
Owners of personal websites and none-profit organisations can use Stillingar.is free of
Charge and web surfers don't have to pay anything for using the service. I really don't know but it would come as a surprise to me if Hugsmiðjan hasn't thought of marketing this
interesting solution internationally. You can contact them here and find out for yourself. If you are interested in this approach to web accesibility you can try stillingar.is out for your self. Here is a list of webs that already subscribe to the service. And if, as I suspect, the Icelandic language is the real obstacle on these particular webs you can always give the bookmarklet on this page a go.
Keywords: accessibility, hugsmiðjan, settings, stillingar
