There is increasingly widespread commitment amongst governing and legislative bodies and campaign organisations to ensure that the WWW is socially inclusive of everyone, regardless of ability, but how can this be achieved? The W3C WAI establishes accessibility guidelines in an attempt to achieve such social inclusion, but how effective are they as a way of achieving inclusion? These research problems are addressed in the project through the following questions:

• How might the social inclusion of people with disabilities in new media like the WWW be achieved?
• How effective are web accessibility guidelines as a means of achieving such social inclusion?
• What factors affect the take up and application of the accessibility ethos and guidelines in the web design practices of new media designers?
• What is the relationship between accessibility guidelines and the creative design process?
• How effective are other approaches (such as the inclusion of disabled users in the design process or highlighting exemplary practice) in achieving accessible web design?