I am not part of this conversation and don't understand why I received this e-mail. Ted Knoy
On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 11:11 PM, Julie Romanowski < [email protected]> wrote: > Mike, maybe you should have worded your question a little differently. At > my company, we don't approach accessibility as "catering to users with > disabilities", but we work toward making applications accessible to the > greatest number of users possible. No application will ever be 100% > accessible, but following standards and WCAG 2.0 guidelines helps us to get > as close to 100% as possible. > > To answer your question - Sticking to standards is not enough. > Accessibility and usability testing are critical. At my company, we have > both an accessibility lab and a usability lab. We have accessibility and > assistive technology (AT) experts onsite who test using various AT, and who > work with actual AT users to identify issues with applications. We also > train designers and developers to identify accessibility issues early in the > design and development lifecycle. There are several other companies I know > of that are doing the same and so much more, such as Adobe, IBM, Microsoft > and Yahoo. > > As for developers not caring about people with disabilities, I disagree. > There is a large community of developers who take accessibility seriously > and are striving to make applications accessible to people with > disabilities. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Mike Kear > Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 2:54 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? > > The conclusion I am coming to, with 5 days since I asked this and no-one > actually saying they do ANYTHING to cater for people with disabilities, is > that even after all this time, no one really spends much time thinking about > users with special needs, other than to code to standards and hope that does > the trick. > > No one either agreed or disagreed with the proposition that sticking to > standards IS in fact enough. > > I asked this question, wondering if someone would say 'yes we have a > usability lab' or 'we have a consultant who runs our sites through his > screen reader for us' or 'we have meetings before launch specifically to > discuss' or something. But no one has said they do anything at all for > users with disability. > > The only responses I've had to this question are people referring me to > documents on line that I found long ago with google. I was interested that > none of the people who gave me those URLS (except Josh Street) said they > actually used the advice in the documents themselves. Josh wasn't specific > about how he caters to people with special needs, but seems to speak with > some knowledge so I'm assuming he caters to Dyslexics in his designs. > > I guess it's going to take another law suit like that one against the > Olympics2000 site to get anyone to take users with special needs seriously > and actually lift a finger to cater to their needs. > > The conclusion I'm being forced towards is that developers are basically > saying that users with special needs will have to swim for themselves and > it's up to them to find some software of their own to get around all the > obstacles the A/Bs put in their way. I'm glad at least property developers > have been forced to change that attitude. > > > Cheers > Mike Kear > Windsor, NSW, Australia > Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks > http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion 9 Enterprise, PHP, ASP, > ASP.NET<http://asp.net/>hosting from AUD$15/month > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Mike Kear > Sent: Thursday, 18 August 2011 11:12 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? > > How to the rest of you a/b people (i.e. able bodied) cater to users with > various forms of disability? > > Up until recently, I've tended to rely on keeping my code to standards, > eliminating tables except for their proper purpose of tabulating data, and > hoping that will give the accessibility level required. Do you go to the > step of accessing your sites with JAWS or something similar to see how the > site works for users with screen readers? > > I remember in the 1990s when I was working at Australian Consumers > Association (choice.com.au) we had someone come and bring his PC with > JAWS. The web team all sat in the boardroom getting ever more glum looks on > our faces as we saw to our horror how terrible our new design was for this > poor guy. We thought we'd got a terrific new design, and were about to > launch it, when he did this demo for us. We had to go back and recode > everything. > This was before anyone was talking about standards though - it was back > when the normally accepted method of laying out pages was to use tables, and > buttons were nearly always images. I remember being astounded at how fast > he was moving around the page, even though we'd unwittingly designed an > obstacle course of humungous proportions for him. > > Our anguish at the time resulted in a far better web site, and convinced me > to pay attention to standards and accessibility ever since. > > But now I'm wondering if simply sticking to standards is enough? > > What do you all think? Do you include JAWS in your site testing? > > Cheers > Mike Kear > Windsor, NSW, Australia > Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks > http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion 9 Enterprise, PHP, ASP, > ASP.NET<http://asp.net/>hosting from AUD$15/month > > > ******************************************************************* > List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm > Help: [email protected] > ******************************************************************* > > ******************************************************************* > List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm > Help: [email protected] > ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [email protected] *******************************************************************
