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Re: two worthwhile reads

for

From: Thompson, Rachel
Date: Sep 8, 2014 7:40AM

I¹m new to this field, new to this struggle, and I still have so much to
learn (many thanks to all of YOU for being my teachers, whether you know
it or not).

I am having accessibility conversations with developers and designers from
our campus and vendors from off-campus who supply many of the systems we
use. I have seen debates on the a11y lists that make my head spin. Our
developers and designers don¹t need to get bogged down in those details,
as far as I can tell, unless they want to. They need from us clear-cut
information about what is needed and recommendations on how to make that
happen. What I have been asked for are (1) a definitive list of what is
expected from a site/page (I share WCAG 2.0 AA in less technical language
with links to the real deal), (2) examples from their sites/tools that are
a problem for users. Done and done. It is always a conversation, always a
dialogue. It has never been (and I hope will not become) a list of demands
from me to our web design and development professionals, who roll their
eyes at my unreasonableness and that silly accessibility stuff. We need to
be a part of their team, at least while a site gets fixed or planned or
through whichever stage it is in.

I got the Ta-da joke after a few moments and it made me chuckle. I¹m glad
this discussion is happening and I hope we can laugh at ourselves more
frequently. It would be a good way to engage other groups we work with and
show that some of us recognize that 100% accessible is an unattainable
goal and unfunded mandate. I¹m gonna quote Denis here and continue to
embrace "a pragmatic, empathetic and welcoming approach to accessibility².

Happy Monday, y¹all.

Rachel

Dr. Rachel S. Thompson
Director, Emerging Technology and Accessibility
Center for Instructional Technology
University of Alabama
http://accessibility.ua.edu







On 09/07/14, 2:56 PM, "Denis Boudreau" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

I agree with you, Karl. I know, this is not a good way to make new
friends. ;)

While this is not the only reason and probably not the most important one
either, our unreasonable expectations for perfection most likely explain
why accessibility is viewed by a lot of people has being so hard.

If you follow the thread that was generated from my tweet (mostly from
members of our echo chamber, unsurprisingly), you will see that a lot of
really good, valid and legitimate feedback was shared. hat being said,
what struck me yesterday as I was going through that feedback was that it
seems like it is very easy for us to put the blame on the armies of
developers, designers and otherwise clueless stakeholders out there who
don¹t get it right off the bat.

What we more rarely hear about (and was vastly overlooked in that Twitter
discussion) is recognizing our own inability to make accessibility
engaging, interesting or even exciting to people outside our field.
Developers and designers are used to tackling hard problems, they do it
all the time. If they¹re not willing to tackle this one, maybe it¹s
because we¹re partly responsible with all our religious WCAG compliance
nonsense. And maybe managers don¹t bite into it much because accessibility
usually tastes like fear, uncertainty and doubt (make sure not to be sued).

By demanding nothing less than perfection, by setting these impossible to
reach golden standards, and by quickly gunning down anyone who makes even
the smallest of mistakes while trying to do the right thing, we are
creating a situation where it just becomes impossible to please us. Of
course, there are a lot of bad developers and designers out there, and
then there are also the lazy ones (just like in any field), but I wouldn¹t
be surprised if most people who give up on accessibiility do so because we
directly or indirectly drive them to do it.

I witness examples of our intolerance in email threads, blog post comments
and on social media all the time, and so do you. If we lowered our
expectations, were a little more tolerant and allowed people to make
mistakes as long as they¹re really trying to do the right thing, maybe
we¹d have more success and maybe our discipline would be more welcomed in
the mainstream.

Unfortunately, it seems that for every accessiblity specialist out there
who embraces a pragmatic, empathetic and welcoming approach to
accessibility, there are about 10 who swear only but WCAG 2.0 hard-lines.

/Denis





On Sep 6, 2014, at 10:13 PM, Karl Groves < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> "do web accessibility professionals have a sense of humour?"
>
> It appears not.
>
> Sad, really.
>
> Denis Boudreau recently asked "A question for y¹all this morning: why
> do you think people feel that web accessibility is so hard?"
> (https://twitter.com/dboudreau/status/508275085942464512)
>
> Here's why I think it is so hard: because accessibility people expect
> perfection and they're so willing to name and shame people who aren't
> perfect. Accessibility people are constantly fighting among each
> other and looking for stuff to complain about.
>
> Bryan tried posting something humorous. Yeah, it was off-topic for the
> mailing list, but who cares? I'd rather see humor on WAI-IG than
> another idiotic debate about whether everything needs to work on Lynx
> or not.
>
> People need to stop looking around every corner for the next thing
> that offends them and start looking for real, tangible, impactful ways
> to advance accessibility into the mainstream.
>
> On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 4:19 PM, Jennison Mark Asuncion
> < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Once again, WebAIM has done great work and has published salary and
>> other useful insights into working in digital accessibility. Results
>> of their summer survey are here
>> http://webaim.org/projects/practitionersurvey/
>>
>> I also came across this piece and thought I'd share it. The '100%
>> accessible website' joke--do web accessibility professionals have a
>> sense of humour?
>>
>>http://www.accessiq.org/news/w3c-column/2014/09/the-100-accessible-websit
>>e-joke-do-web-accessibility-professionals-have-a
>>
>> Jennison
>> >> >> >
>
>
> --
>
> Karl Groves
> www.karlgroves.com
> @karlgroves
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/karlgroves
> Phone: +1 410.541.6829
>
> Modern Web Toolsets and Accessibility
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uq6Db47-Ks
>
> www.tenon.io
> > >