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

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From: Weissenberger, Todd M
Date: Jun 11, 2013 11:08AM

I guess I see "accessibility" as one angle on superior design practices. Many of the same techniques that improve accessibility also improve scalability, manageability, and management, AND they tend to be more usable across more platforms. Accessible documents are semantically more sound, more agile and versatile, and indicative of better design practices. New technologies permit speech, gesture, and even facial recognition to operate user interfaces.
Also, cultural and demographic changes over the past couple of decades have enabled people to engage in universities, industry, and the marketplace who might not have had that opportunity 30 years ago. Advances in medical intervention and technologies also play a role in this, with greater survival and rehabilitation rates for people who experience trauma, and more engagement at greater ages, when visual and mobile acuity may be diminished.

Designers who actively object to universal, accessible design practices (as opposed to those who are open-minded and still are learning) often betray not only their inability to code themselves out of a wet paper bag, they reveal themselves to be quite disassociated from the cultural evolution surrounding them, at least here in the U.S.