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From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Thu, Nov 10 2005 2:10PM
Subject: Web site(s) that list general disability statistics?
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Often when I talk of accessibility, I get hit with the usuall rebuttals
'well, blind people are such a minority' or 'yea, I know being color
blind is a problem but that's so few people', etc.

I do try to convicne them that accessibility isn't about specific
minorities, but rather about makings sites more usable for everyone, but
thought it would be ncie to have some numbers regarding some of those
types of questions. Is anyone aware of some resources that go over
things like 'number of people with vision impairments' or 'number of
people that use non-mouse screen navigation' etc?

Googling turns up surprisingly little in the way of hard demographic
data. Or maybe I haven't been using the right searches...

-Darrel

From: Michael Moore
Date: Thu, Nov 10 2005 4:20PM
Subject: Re: Web site(s) that list general disability statistics?
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Here is one resource,

<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/001823.html>;

Mike

Austin, Darrel wrote:
> Often when I talk of accessibility, I get hit with the usuall rebuttals
> 'well, blind people are such a minority' or 'yea, I know being color
> blind is a problem but that's so few people', etc.
>
> I do try to convicne them that accessibility isn't about specific
> minorities, but rather about makings sites more usable for everyone, but
> thought it would be ncie to have some numbers regarding some of those
> types of questions. Is anyone aware of some resources that go over
> things like 'number of people with vision impairments' or 'number of
> people that use non-mouse screen navigation' etc?
>
> Googling turns up surprisingly little in the way of hard demographic
> data. Or maybe I haven't been using the right searches...
>
> -Darrel
>
>
>
>
>
>

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Fri, Nov 11 2005 9:00AM
Subject: RE: Web site(s) that list general disability statistics?
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I would suggest a couple of approaches.

If someone uses the "too few" argument, find out what they mean by too
few. I have often found that other people's perception of the number of
people with disabilities underestimates the statistics. For instance,
most people will definitely underestimate the number of people who are
color blind.

Another approach is to find out what user populations they think are
important to design for. For example, in most businesses today, there
is a focus on what are called emerging markets. Most of those markets
are actually a much smaller percentage of a given population than the
percentage of the population with disabilities.

I think the other good approach is one you all mentioned already. Tell
your audience how designing accessible user interfaces benefits their
other audiences. Talk about new technologies and how they can benefit
from an accessible environment. Talk about how specific elements that
make an environment accessible benefit their other work or goals.

I have found that unless you guide people to define their terms and
perceptions exactly, it is impossible to dispel any misperceptions.

From: Carol E. Wheeler
Date: Fri, Nov 11 2005 10:20AM
Subject: RE: Web site(s) that list general disability statistics?
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You might also want to emphasize that accessibility coding improves
SEO, which is better for their bottom line.

Carol E. Wheeler
American Library Association
Washington Office
202.628.8410 v
202.403.8495 f

From: John Dowdell
Date: Mon, Nov 14 2005 8:20AM
Subject: Re: Web site(s) that list general disability statistics?
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Austin, Darrel wrote:
> Is anyone aware of some resources that go over
> things like 'number of people with vision impairments' or 'number of
> people that use non-mouse screen navigation' etc?

For what it's worth, awhile ago I tried to research how small a
percentage of readers-of-English are native readers-of-English, but I
quickly got caught up in dueling statistics, depending on precisely when
an authority determined whether a reader "read English" or not.

It seems a certainty that that a majority of the people who might be
exposed to most sites written in English are not native readers (or
listeners) of that language, so skipping intros, minimizing
colloquialisms and cultural references, and writing clearly and
concisely can make a site more accessible to a larger number of people.

If your site has a purely local orientation then this may not matter.
Reading costs are a significant and under-emphasized issue, though.
Pictures and animation might be more accessible than text for these
audiences, even though they are useless to many with differences in
visual capability. It's a tough problem all around, made even tougher by
the fact that the stats on native English readers are so soft, so
contested by different methods of measurement.

jd




--
John Dowdell . Macromedia Developer Support . San Francisco CA USA
Weblog: http://www.macromedia.com/go/blog_jd
Aggregator: http://www.macromedia.com/go/weblogs
Technotes: http://www.macromedia.com/support/
Spam killed my private email -- public record is best, thanks.

From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Mon, Nov 14 2005 9:40AM
Subject: RE: Web site(s) that list general disability statistics?
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Thanks everyone for the comments.

To clarify, I completely understand the arguments for accessibility
independent of statistics on specific handicaps or preferences.

In fact, that's what I always argue. There is no need for stats to
embrace accessibility. Accessibility simply means better design overall.
BUT, there are those folks that still want to argue that 'there's no
point in making my site accessible because I don't care about the 3
blind people out there' where simply showing them some numbers will help
them realize that even if they think of terms of accessibility being a
way to accommodate specific minorities, those minorities can still be
quite large...especially when added together.

The census.gov link had a nice intro paragraph:

=================
49.7 million
Number of people age 5 and over in the civilian noninstitutionalized
population with at least one disability, according to Census 2000; this
is a ratio of nearly 1-in-5 U.S. residents, or 19 percent. These
individuals fit at least one of the following descriptions: 1) they are
5 years old or older and have a sensory, physical, mental or self-care
disability; 2) they are 16 years old or older and have difficulty going
outside the home; or 3) they are 16-to-64 years old and have an
employment disability.

=================
I think that is well said. Putting it in terms of '1 in 5 customers
benefit from accessibility awareness' is a great (and valid) argument.

-Darrel