WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Workshop on Designing Accessible Website

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From: Mark Magennis
Date: May 10, 2005 3:03AM

>>People with disabilities comprise of approximately 600
>
>> million or 10% of the
>
>>> > world population that form a potential market which is untapped.
>>> > Don't IGNORE this market.........
>
>>
>> I hate this argumentation.


I hate it too but it helps, so I use it. As I see it, there are five
main arguments for accessibility:

1. The moral argument, which appeals to kindness or the business
benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility.
2. The "ignoring your potential customers" argument, as stated above.
3. The "designing for diversity is good design practice" argument, which
emphasizes the importance of considering users' access capabilities as a
part of user-focussed design.
4. The "future technologies" argument, which points out that computer
use and Internet access is increasingly moving away from the 'desktop
and big screen' scenario towards mobile, in-car, ubiquitous and
immersive scenarios in which access is limited in many ways by situation
and technology.
5. The legal or public policy argument, which says you're going to get
hammered if you don't comply.

>From my experience, I would rate these roughly in order of increasing
effectiveness. So, maybe unfortunately, the moral argument is the least
effective of the five. Bear in mind that I am talking about Ireland in
2005 so things may be different in other places or in the near or
distant future. The legal one is a funny one. I put it highest in the
list because most of the demand for accessibility in Ireland seems to be
coming from the public sector, based on non-binding government and EU
policy. However, there is very little demand from the private sector
because Ireland simply has no effective laws whatsoever. Not even
general disability legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act
or the UK Disability Discrimination Act. But I believe effective
legislation, if it were in place, would far outweigh the other arguments
at the moment.

Hopefully, the "future technologies" argument will become stronger and
more apparent in the near future. Currently I tend to push the
"designing for diversity is good design practice" argument because I
believe in it, although it is quite difficult to convince people.

I'd be really interested to hear other people's opinions on this - what
arguments are there and how effective do you think they are.

Mark