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Re: What is Web Accessibility?

for

From: Kynn Bartlett
Date: Mar 23, 2006 11:40AM

On 3/23/06, Austin, Darrel < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> > While limiting it to blind people only is a problem, so also
> > is the idea that we can somehow magically eliminate the
> > concept of people with disabilities from "web accessibility."
> Since when to people with disabilities NOT fall under the label of 'for
> all'?


I've never claimed that, have I?

What I am claiming is that attempts to say that web accessibility are not
about disabled people but about "everyone" are not only ahistorical, but
they serve to once more push people with disabilities to the side.

This happens when you generalize the problem to "everyone". Suddenly the
needs and desires of someone with no visual impairments become at least as
important as the needs and desires of someone who uses a screenreader.

Web accessibility is about, for once, putting the people with specific needs
due to disability first. This benefits people without disabilities, but the
attempt to remove disability considerations from accessibility is misguided.

Whenever something is presented as an assessibilityissue, the question
always should be "which people with disabilities are affected by this, and
does the solution address their needs?" (As well as considering whether the
solution impacts access by other people with and without disabilities.)

No one is arguing that. The point is that if you sell it as soley 'for
> those with disabilities' it is seen as a burdern, rather than smart
> business.


I guess that I don't understand smart business, then, if the argument
involves somehow being embarrassed that you're talking about disabled
people.

If you want to sell the ideas of curb cuts to the taxpayers, don't try
> to tell that it's for the minority of folks that use wheelchairs.


This is ahistorical. Curbcuts were never "sold" to taxpayers on the notion
that stroller-pushing dads could use them. They were and are "sold" on the
notion of equal rights for people with disabilities, which is a legal,
moral, and ethical obligation.


> Tell
> them it's for people that use wheelchairs...and inline skates, and
> bikes, and scooters, and those with canes, and walkers, and strollers,
> and carts, etc.


Can you point to a community that has ever argued this as a reason for
curbcuts, rather than citing the very real civil rights arguments which
involve people with disabilities. I seriously doubt that such a thing
exists. Municipalities don't redo their curbs for people with inline skates;
they redo their curbs for people with disabilities.

If you just try to sell accessibility as some sort of legal/moral issue
> to appeal to a few minorities, folks that write the checks find it a
> burden. They SHOULDN'T, of course, but I realize that they do.


So the answer is to pretend that it's not REALLY about those embarrassing
cripples, and all about the soccer dads pushing their future football stars
down the curb?

To pretend that web accessibility is really about rich gadget freaks using
palm/cell phone combos to access the web, and just by accident it helps out
the blind guy, the girl who uses a switch for access, the cognitively
impaired guy?

No, no.

Web accessibility is about people with disabilities getting access, because
it is a moral, legal, and ethical right, first and foremost. Trying to
dress it up as a crusade for "everyone" because people with disabilities are
embarrassing is just morally wrong.

--Kynn

PS: Since 1990, far more accessibility improvements have been made in towns
and cities across the U.S. thanks to the ADA than have ever been made
because city commissioners want to improve things for inline skaters and
parents with strollers. True fact. I don't know where you're getting your
"smart business" from.