WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Corporate Social Responsibility

for

From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Oct 18, 2004 4:20PM

> That
> is the kind of information I would like to see more of so that we can
> speak business language. I think the concept of Web accessibility is
> marketable if we frame it effectively.

Instead of preaching social responsibility, read verses from the other
bible they like...the accounting ledger.

I like to address things like accessibility, usability, and web standards as
simply ways to increase efficiency over the lifespan of a web site/content.
The nice thing is that the above 3 tend to intertwine with each other fairly
well, so you can push one and see benefits in the other two.

The basic argument is 'why deny customers the opportunity to spend money
with you?'

If you make the web page accessible to a text reader, you've:
- given a blind person the ability to interact as a customer

In addition
- the busy lawyer using his PDA on the train now can interact as a customer

If you make the web page accessible by using more semantic markup and better
structured documents you've:
- allowed users of text readers to more easily navigate the content.

In addition
- your google ranking has gone up
- it will cost less to update the site due to the cleaner source documents

Etc.

-Darrel