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Thread: Impact on Effort Estimation

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From: Sohaib Akhtar
Date: Wed, Sep 28 2005 7:20AM
Subject: Impact on Effort Estimation
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Hi,
I know there are many experts there so I would like to ask on thing: Our
company has recently decided to conform all web based interfaces to Web
Accessibility Standards for Disable people so in this regard I would like to
ask that how this will impact the effort estimation.
I mean if we want to conform to all the standards then how much more effort
one has to put to conform to all the standards?. If previously one develops
one page in a day then when he will go for all the standards then how long
will it take?
Is there any case study, which could guide me in this regard that how much
more effort one has to put to conform to all the standards?. or can anyone
tell me based on his/her experience.
any kind of help in this regard would be appreciable.
Regards,
SAC



From: Christian Heilmann
Date: Wed, Sep 28 2005 8:00AM
Subject: Re: Impact on Effort Estimation
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> Hi,
>
> I know there are many experts there so I would like to ask on thing: Our
> company has recently decided to conform all web based interfaces to Web
> Accessibility Standards for Disable people so in this regard I would like to
> ask that how this will impact the effort estimation.

If your sole purpose is to adhere to "standards" (they are guidelines)
then you might as well not bother. You will put much more work into it
and the end result will please an online validator but is still not
accessible. Accessibility is not a technical issue or only for
disabled people. It is a nice by-product of good usability, proper
information architecture and standard conform web development.

> I mean if we want to conform to all the standards then how much more effort
> one has to put to conform to all the standards?. If previously one develops
> one page in a day then when he will go for all the standards then how long
> will it take?

That is impossible to say. If you consider accessibility when you
develop the page you are too late. How could you as a developer know
if a text is easy to grasp, if the colours are unambiguous or how hard
it is to use a site.

As one of the big parts of accessible web products is a proper and
easy to understand navigation through the product looking at single
pages is pointless.

Surely a text-only page takes less time than a search page with results?

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/




From: ben morrison
Date: Wed, Sep 28 2005 8:40AM
Subject: Re: Impact on Effort Estimation
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On 9/28/05, Sohaib Akhtar < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> I mean if we want to conform to all the standards then how much more effort
> one has to put to conform to all the standards?. If previously one develops
> one page in a day then when he will go for all the standards then how long
> will it take?

>From my own experience - coming from a tag soup dreamweaver user
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_soup). It takes effort to begin
with, to learn css, vaild semantic markup and accessibility
techniques/guidelines. So initially your estimates will have to go up
- although not your costs, as its your learning curve not your
clients.

The rewards soon start appearing:
site wide changes are quicker,
non-duplication of web sites - text-only/print.
More understandable code.

Once you begin to understand then it actually becomes quicker than before.

ben