It's fairly inarguable that Firefox needs to exist. Going back just a few years ago to when Mozilla introduced what would quickly become their flagship browser, much of the internet was in the equivalent of the digital dark ages. Netscape was struggling along after Internet Explorer had successfully derailed its efforts years ago, but even IE was suffering from a stagnating development process and an industry that was trying to move forward with efforts in standards and compatibility. Sure, Opera was always on the outer fringes, but its market share hasn't really seen much of the leap that its devoted following believes it deserves.

Along comes Firefox in 2004, and everything changes. Netscape drops even farther off the list of many a user, and Internet Explorer begins slowly, but steadily, losing market share to the open source Mozilla alternative that opened up the public's eye to the wonders of extensions and add-ons. It is at this moment in time, however, when Firefox also began to slowly replace Internet Explorer as a dominant and, in some ways, proprietary force on the web.

In 2007, Firefox certainly hasn't destroyed IE's market share, but it sure has made a dent. While that's a positive thing in the name of choice and the triumph of good software, Firefox has quite possibly made a negative impact on the development of web sites and software when viewed in the context of accessibility. Think about it: before Firefox, most websites were not only 'optimized' for IE, you pretty much had to view them in IE if you wanted to see anything more than the equivalent of an unfinished jigsaw puzzle blown apart with a shotgun. Even though it could be argued that web design standards have come quite a ways since then (and they certainly have), the damage done from Firefox's wild popularity among the tech savvy (and even not-so-savvy) primarily lies in this new frontier of web apps and services.

Eight percent of all men suffer from some form of colorblindness, a condition that can interfere with their ability to distinguish things designed for unimpaired viewers. Color Oracle aims to change this by making it easy for designers to see their work as a colorblind person would. Color Oracle overlays the user's screen to simulate three different kinds of colorblindness of increasing severity, the idea being that by designing for the severely colorblind, all your bases will be covered.

It would be great to get some feedback on this app from actual colorblind readers– perhaps even colorblind designer Jon Hicks of Firefox fame?

[via Daring Fireball]

Target faces a class-action lawsuit this week because their website was deemed inaccessible for those with disabilities like blindness. The judge struck down a motion to drop the case stating that Target must make its website accessible to those with disabilities just as if they were shopping in their physical stores. The judge cited the Americans with Disabilities Act, saying Target is legally obligated to serve its online customers with the same provisions as brick-and-mortar stores. Target is still hopeful that this will not be the final word, and the ruling has not been finalized yet, but this case does raise interesting issues and accessibility law considerations for many companies, depending on how this case turns out.

[Via DailyCal.org]

Its creators style DENIM "An Informal Tool For Early Stage Web Site and UI Design." If you're not exactly clear on what that means, here's my take: DENIM is a program for whipping up quick prototypes of web sites and user interfaces. DENIM lets you draw rough sketches of your user interface just like you've been doing on paper for years, but saves you the step of translating that into a digital mock-up by letting you immediately add hyperlinks and interactive navigation.