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Number of posts in this thread: 11 (In chronological order)

From: Greg Gamble
Date: Mon, Jun 10 2013 11:29AM
Subject: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?
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Wow ... If what everyone is saying is the norm, I must consider myself lucky. My co-workers are extremely conscious of accessibility guidelines and its necessity, and my off-work/freelance contacts have the same standards.

I realize that some of our customers are ignorant of the fact, but as a developer I show them the benefits of what I/we do and they usually give us the extra time ... if we need it. In my world there are only a few who don't really understand the need for accessibility, but that’s usually from inexperience or greed.

An example ... I was having a conversation with a well off family friend and I mentioned the issue Target had with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). They could not understand why someone who was blind would want to go to a web page, or why Target would want to spend shareholders money on something so unnecessary. She's a dyed in the wool Republican who, after almost an hour of arguing, still did not get it. Lucky for me, I don't work with or need to deal with people like that all the time.

So this begs the question: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility? What do you do to show the way?



Greg Gamble
SBCTC - Olympia | Information Services

From: GF Mueden
Date: Mon, Jun 10 2013 11:40PM
Subject: Re: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?
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I can think of ony one reason that would appeal: self protection
If you don't, you may be hit by bad publicity and even lawsuits.
Or wait until a young member of your family has an accessibility
problem, and is deprived of all the power of the internet his friends
enioy; you will see it differently. You will be quoting the Golden
Rule. do unto others as you would have others do unto you. [Have I got
it right?] If you value your reputation, better get with it.
George

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Tue, Jun 11 2013 8:17AM
Subject: Re: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?
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As a community, we should find more effective methods of educating web developers, web managers, and owners about the issue. It's a question of using a carrot or stick.

The stick — shame, guilt, and threats of lawsuits or boycotts — work only as a last resort and don't create lasting change in behavior, especially over a wide population. Only the donkey getting hit with the stick will change, and then only when threatened with the stick.

As Greg asks below, how do we show the way?
How do we show the entire web development community that:
1) Accessibility is in their best interests. 10-20% of the population has difficulty using a computer.
2) Accessibility has many related benefits, such as making your content better able to be used across different platforms and devices, as well as republished in other formats (such as printed documents, websites, mobile devices, eReaders).
3) It's not difficult to design accessibility into a website. Here's how, etc.

As with any group of people, misconceptions get passed around like crazy. One web developer has problems making a site accessible, and then tells everyone he knows about hard it is and how much money it cost. This is dis-information spreading from developer to developer to developer.

An educational method would work well. Create a multi-pronged outreach program that educates everyone in the web development community. Teach them that it's not difficult to build in basic accessibility features. Show them the benefits. And teach them how to do it.

Break down the barriers, misconceptions, and ignorance with good solid public relations and education. You'll "win hearts and minds" that way, and you'll accomplish your goal of having accessible websites.

Carrots always work better than sticks.

—Bevi Chagnon

From: John E Brandt
Date: Tue, Jun 11 2013 8:51AM
Subject: Re: How do you make a someone understand the necessity ofaccessibility?
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The best logic I have used to "get their attention" is to mention "SEO."

All of the SEO "gurus" I have come across will at some point mention the fact that Google and Bing "love" websites built to WC3 standards and many will mention the need to use ALT descriptions (and even note the need to avoid the use of text in images). Occasionally they will even mention the value of using Headings.

When I do my talks I always mention that between 10-20% of the population have some form of "disability" and ask, "do you want to exclude 20% of the market?"

Works wonders.

~j


John E. Brandt
jebswebs: accessible and universal design,
development and consultation
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
207-622-7937
Augusta, Maine, USA

From: deborah.kaplan
Date: Tue, Jun 11 2013 9:29AM
Subject: Re: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?
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in my environment I've had best success by showing concrete
examples. In fact, I think my most successful presentation to my
colleagues came when I showed them photographs of a couple of
physical accessibility disasters in our workplace to open a
presentation (one of which has since been fixed, so at least my
presentation had that effect!). Physical accessibility disasters
are easy for people to see once you point out the problem, and
that gets them in the mode of seeing what's wrong.

Then I show them video of people navigating by voice or screen
reader, because those are really attention grabbing. I don't show
them as much of people *failing* to navigate a web interface, so
much as I show them how quickly a screen reader user can jump
around if a page has well designated headings, for example.

The combination of those two catches peoples attention and gets
them on the fix-it mode, in my experience.

Deborah Kaplan
Accessibility Team Co-Lead
Dreamwidth Studios LLC

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Tue, Jun 11 2013 9:55AM
Subject: Re: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?
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Give me a lever and a place to stand and I'll move the world.

You all offer great ideas for persuading others to take accessibility seriously. I did notice a couple common themes.

First, it sounds like you all found the right lever or motivation to persuade the other person. Second, your standing, your relationship to the people you wanted to convince helped make the lever more effective--sometimes it is easier to convince people if they see you as a colleague and other times it can be easier if they see you as an accessibility professional.

My thought is that, if you want to convince people to take accessibility seriously, start by understanding them as well as work to develop the most effective relationship possible for the situation. And if you fail to move them, take a breather and then try to figure out why your persuasion did not work.

Persuading people to take accessibility seriously is a major decision. You are most likely asking them to make a commitment to changing how they work and think. That takes a lot of effort, so it might take a lot of persuasion.

From: Shawn Henry
Date: Tue, Jun 11 2013 10:57AM
Subject: Re: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?
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Nice to get different perspectives on this. It would be great to have them in one place, rather than various e-mail threads.

Would you consider adding your perspectives to the WAI-Engage wiki page on promoting web accessibility at:
<http://www.w3.org/community/wai-engage/wiki/Promoting_web_accessibility>;

WAI-Engage is a W3C Community Group. Anyone can join the group and edit the wiki. Info at: <http://www.w3.org/community/wai-engage/>;
If you have any questions about joining the group or the editing wiki, please call me or e-mail me directly.

Thanks!
~Shawn
http://www.w3.org/People/Shawn/


On 6/11/2013 10:55 AM, Tim Harshbarger wrote:
> Give me a lever and a place to stand and I'll move the world.
>
> You all offer great ideas for persuading others to take accessibility seriously. I did notice a couple common themes.
>
> First, it sounds like you all found the right lever or motivation to persuade the other person. Second, your standing, your relationship to the people you wanted to convince helped make the lever more effective--sometimes it is easier to convince people if they see you as a colleague and other times it can be easier if they see you as an accessibility professional.
>
> My thought is that, if you want to convince people to take accessibility seriously, start by understanding them as well as work to develop the most effective relationship possible for the situation. And if you fail to move them, take a breather and then try to figure out why your persuasion did not work.
>
> Persuading people to take accessibility seriously is a major decision. You are most likely asking them to make a commitment to changing how they work and think. That takes a lot of effort, so it might take a lot of persuasion.
>
>
>
>

From: Weissenberger, Todd M
Date: Tue, Jun 11 2013 11:08AM
Subject: Re: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?
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I guess I see "accessibility" as one angle on superior design practices. Many of the same techniques that improve accessibility also improve scalability, manageability, and management, AND they tend to be more usable across more platforms. Accessible documents are semantically more sound, more agile and versatile, and indicative of better design practices. New technologies permit speech, gesture, and even facial recognition to operate user interfaces.
Also, cultural and demographic changes over the past couple of decades have enabled people to engage in universities, industry, and the marketplace who might not have had that opportunity 30 years ago. Advances in medical intervention and technologies also play a role in this, with greater survival and rehabilitation rates for people who experience trauma, and more engagement at greater ages, when visual and mobile acuity may be diminished.

Designers who actively object to universal, accessible design practices (as opposed to those who are open-minded and still are learning) often betray not only their inability to code themselves out of a wet paper bag, they reveal themselves to be quite disassociated from the cultural evolution surrounding them, at least here in the U.S.

From: Weissenberger, Todd M
Date: Tue, Jun 11 2013 11:13AM
Subject: Re: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?
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Sorry for the double--I guess to communicate the value of accessibility to someone like that, you'd want to focus on marketshare ($$ from older populations, disabled veterans, independent living), management and maintenance costs (scalability, cross-platform usability), and robustness and elegance (your code won't get you laughed out of the next developers' cocktail party). Money and pride speak to some people in a way that altruism and integrity do not.

T

From: Don Mauck
Date: Tue, Jun 11 2013 11:15AM
Subject: Re: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?
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I agree with all of this. I find that the WOW factor of me doing a live demo, as I fly around on a page can make a big difference, that has a lot of complexity, they really get it, it opens their eyes and they realize that it does matter for all the right reasons. Then you get to convince the PM that it matters as well, another issue of its own.

From: Whitney Quesenbery
Date: Wed, Jun 12 2013 3:55PM
Subject: Re: How do you make a someone understand the necessity of accessibility?
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I find that the approach I use depends, in part, on the people I'm talking
to.
- What's my relationship to the organization - what group or at what level
am I supporting people in the organization?
- Is there organizational resistance, or is this a change management
problem?
- Is there any story or example that I can use as a way to open the door?
- How in-accessible is their web site now? (That is, how hard will change
be?)
- How exposed are they to legal advocacy? How familiar are they with
regulatory compliance?
- Is there a natural audience of their users I can use for inspiration?
- Are we starting something new or maintaining something old, or both?
- How large is the organization?
- How large is the product or web team?
- How much authority does the central web team have, anyway?
- What's the organization's learning culture?




On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Don Mauck < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> I agree with all of this. I find that the WOW factor of me doing a live
> demo, as I fly around on a page can make a big difference, that has a lot
> of complexity, they really get it, it opens their eyes and they realize
> that it does matter for all the right reasons. Then you get to convince
> the PM that it matters as well, another issue of its own.
>