One of the big Web announcements last week was that ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, will allow domain names ending in virtually any extension you choose. The top-level domain name is the part of the Web address after the last dot; the most common one is .COM.

There's already some discussion online about the possibility of creating top-level domains with a firm's name, so it would appear as www.something.MyGreatFirm instead of www.MyGreatFirm.COM. But if every major corporation in just one country does this, it will be just as confusing as the current system - you'll remember the Web site's name, but not necessarily what that company does.

But what if your new Web address were MyGreatFirm.law? Your clients would remember who you are and what you do, and it would make it that much easier for new clients to find you.

-- Frances

According to TheCounter.com, the Firefox browser continues a gradual increase in browser usage, up to about 16% of Web users. Internet Explorer is still the leading browser, but with last week’s release of Firefox 3.0, with more than 8.3 million downloads in the first 24 hours following release, we should expect that browser usage percentage to increase.

--Frances

Just as diversity and pro bono have become big buzzwords in the legal industry, accessibility has become the "it" word with Web sites... keep your site accessible to make sure you're not restricting any users. Designing for accessibility is a careful balance between technology and the information you want to present.

Some Web sites are inaccessible as a result of overusing technology - Web sites designed entirely in Flash or images are not only inaccessible, they're also not searchable; search engines can't find out what their content is. Some inaccessible Web sites use outdated technology, such as Framesets or inaccessible PDFs (PDFs can be made accessible; Adobe provides instructions within their Web site on how to do this). Many sites are missing "smaller" things for accessibility – alternative text for non-text items, proper labeling of forms and tables, or flexible font sizes (particularly the sites built in microscopic fonts, with no option to increase the size), among other things.

There are several online tools that will evaluate a site's accessibility - be sure your developers test this on your site. Web sites are such a significant marketing device for law firms that we don't think you should lose a single user over accessibility issues.

-- Frances