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Re: Microsoft Accessibility Collaboration Opportunities

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From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: May 13, 2016 3:26PM

Yes, Jennifer's suggestion is a good one. Combined with input by a targetted accessibility group, the open public forums can reinforce the need for accessibility.

As a professional beta tester for 30+ years for more software companies than I can count, I've learned several things:

1. Software engineers know how to program. But they don't know anything about what we users do with their software, so their understanding of what tools we need and the end-products we're trying to create is nil.

2. They don't have a clue what accessibility is about, especially those engineering teams located in countries that either haven't adopted accessibility laws or haven't yet implemented their countries' policies. The majority of software engineering teams are no longer located in the US, Canada, Europe, and other countries with accessibility laws.

3. Their bosses, who allocate the R&D funding to program features into the software, don't have a clue what accessibility is about, so they don't give accessibility the go-ahead on the development schedule.

4. Open forums are managed by the lowest level staff at the software company, usually those without much experience in programming or software use. They literally are counting the number of requests that come in on various topics, and then relaying those numbers to the upper echelons in the marketing department.

Therefore:

1. The more that we can reach the decision makers at the software companies, the greate likelihood we'll see better software in a couple of years.

2. Having a direct organized group speak directly to them is one method. Open Forums can help, but we'll need to make sure enough "numbers" make their voices heard by the forum counters. Coordination by members of the two groups is critical.

—Bevi Chagnon