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Re: Do people actually want Automatic Accessibility within WebTechnologies?

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From: John Foliot
Date: Apr 20, 2012 10:23AM

Bryan Garaventa
>
> When I say Automatic Accessibility, I'm referring to a combination of
> Universal Design (equally accessible for all) and Inclusive Design
> (integrated accessibility within mainstream applications). I adopted the
> term Automatic Accessibility because it's more descriptive and easier
> for people to understand who aren't already familiar with the terms
> Universal and Inclusive design.
>
> So when I refer to Automatic Accessibility for web technologies, I'm
> talking about the incorporation of automatically accessible processes at
> the bedrock level of enterprise development. This way, new technologies
> can be built that include accessible features automatically, and
> everyone wins.
>
> Is there something wrong with this idea?

Hi Bryan,

I have a few issues to consider.

Introducing yet another new term:

As you have already noted, we have "Universal Design", and we have
"Inclusive Design", and within the web-world we also have "Progressive
Enhancement" and "Graceful Degradation", and, and, and... introducing yet
another new idea/term into the lexicon adds yet another term to
learn/use/know, and I can hear the inevitable question now: "what's the
difference between Universal Design and Automatic Accessibility?"

"Universal Design Isn't" (and neither is Automatic):

By which I mean that even the concept of Universal Design (and
Inclusive Design as well) suffers from what I consider the "Long Tail"
problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail) - that the universality of
Universal Design has itself some limitations, and at some point, to be
really inclusive, we need to also consider Accommodation strategies. It has
been my observation (and concern) that increasingly - and notably within the
web world - this basic fact is becoming lost in the rush to embrace
"Universal Design" (and the presumption of what you are calling Automatic
Accessibility). I see this a lot in my exchanges and work at the W3C with
HTML5, where a significant portion of a certain working group believe that
Universal Design principles will solve *all* accessibility issues (because,
you know, they tested it with VoiceOver...)

The bottom line is that to achieve the real end-goal (access for
<del>all</del> <ins>most of</ins> of our users) requires attention, thought,
and occasionally some extra effort; and while I whole-heartedly embrace the
concept of Universal Design and Inclusive Design, it is with the caveat that
those principles alone do not equal success. My fear is that if we
introduce a loaded term like "Automatic" it somehow suggests that the end
authors don't have to contribute to the heavy lifting, which I believe we
all know to be false.

Me, I will continue to use the term Universal Design, which is already a
common term in the Design world, and teach that while Universal Design as a
design principle is beneficial to all users in subtle and not-so-subtle
ways, I will also continue to teach at the same time that it gets us 80% or
better towards our ultimate goal, but that it has its limitations, and
should not be thought of as the panacea to absolve authors/creators from
thinking through what they are creating.

My $0.02, because you asked...

JF