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Re: information for non-profits

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From: Iain Harrison
Date: Sep 27, 2004 12:58PM

Monday, September 27, 2004, 7:52:34 PM, glenda wrote:

> However, my next section is regarding non-profits that farm out their web
> development / maintenance to an external source, ie a web design company,
> the pimpled face kid down the street or the Executive Director's nephew
> looking for a class project. Remember, non-profits generally have little or
> no money.

> How can such organizations implement a Web accessibility plan when the site
> is done externally? And when the individual negotiating the contract
> [assuming there is one ] has no knowledge of HTML, Web Content Accessibility
> Guidelines 1.0,etc etc etc? Can anyone here offer sample contract clauses
> and such? Any suitable readings online?

The basic starting point is to choose a competent web design
company. Sadly, that rules out 99.9% of the ones in the business.
And, no, I'm not kidding.

How about requiring that the site is fully standards-complaint and
meets WAI AAA standards as a basic specification?

Doing it properly cost no more: in fact it can cost far less,
particularly if you factor in the server cost savings from lean,
clean code.

I've never been impressed by the "we have no money" arguments. Do
these non-profits use lighting collected by mirrors under
streetlamps, or do they expect to pay the rate their utility
supplier charges? The latter, of course. So why don't they want to
pay the price to have professional-looking web sites?


--

Iain