WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: The cost of accessibility

for

From: Denis Boudreau
Date: Oct 5, 2010 4:33PM

Hi there,

On 2010-10-05, at 1:26 PM, Steve Green wrote:

> That's a deeply flawed assumption. Most highly-skilled developers have no
> idea how to test with a screen reader or other assistive technologies even
> though they think they do. Only a tiny number have had any contact with
> people who use these tools. Virtually none have been trained by someone who
> understands how the assistive technologies are used in practice and
> understands the needs of the users.

No matter how much I agree with you and how much I would hope this possible, it is totally unrealistic to think most agencies, developers and organizations would be willing to reserve parts of their budgets to get real users to come and test for them when they have developers on the inside claiming they can do the job. Very few would. Only the ones who "get it"...

Nicolas Steenhout had a very interesting blog post on the subject a few days ago[1]. Most of us would agree that no sighted user can come close to a non-sighted user when it comes to testing with a screen reading software. Yes, in the nice world of unicorns and rainbows where I like to go hide regularly, such users should be included at all times. But in this one, most managers wouldn't bother with that kind of information. We can preach and hope to change mentalities over time, but for now, I feel this is not relevant data when trying to come up with a ballpark percentage for the "real" cost of accessibility.

Not in the government or web industry I work in at least...

[1] http://accessibility.net.nz/blog/should-sighted-developers-use-screenreaders-to-test-accessibility/

/Denis