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How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?

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From: Greg Gamble
Date: Jun 10, 2013 11:29AM

Wow ... If what everyone is saying is the norm, I must consider myself lucky. My co-workers are extremely conscious of accessibility guidelines and its necessity, and my off-work/freelance contacts have the same standards.

I realize that some of our customers are ignorant of the fact, but as a developer I show them the benefits of what I/we do and they usually give us the extra time ... if we need it. In my world there are only a few who don't really understand the need for accessibility, but that’s usually from inexperience or greed.

An example ... I was having a conversation with a well off family friend and I mentioned the issue Target had with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). They could not understand why someone who was blind would want to go to a web page, or why Target would want to spend shareholders money on something so unnecessary. She's a dyed in the wool Republican who, after almost an hour of arguing, still did not get it. Lucky for me, I don't work with or need to deal with people like that all the time.

So this begs the question: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility? What do you do to show the way?



Greg Gamble
SBCTC - Olympia | Information Services