Feeling Ashamed

At 6:36 AM -0700 2001/10/26, William Loughborough wrote:
>*We* are all ashamed of *ourselves* from time to time - probably 
>including Kynn and certainly including me. There just ain't no "you 
>people" out there (or in here) - just *us*. We're all in this 
>together; we're all members of one another.

I'm continually ashamed of myself.  My web page is all text, for example,
and whenever I read something by Jonathan or Anne, I feel guilt and shame,
and my reflex is to utterly reject whatever they say because it makes me
feel bad.

I hate being made to feel bad.  Originally I fought them tooth and nail
on this issue -- until I realized my motives were not what I thought.
I was putting my own ego and comfort level first, above that of access
by people with specific disabilities.

It still makes me feel icky when I hear things which serve to condemn
my own work -- but like the graphic artist who is told she made an
inaccessible page, I have to grow beyond it and realize that yes,
Anne and Jonathan are _right_ and are communicating something which
I simply cannot afford to ignore because it doesn't give me warm fuzzies.

I did a presentation on web accessibility this week.  I am not a
good PowerPoint creator, so I just threw something together.  It was
a good outline, rich in content, and I gave a good talk based on it.
During the break, someone came up to me and told me that it was
awful.  Why?  Because there were no pictures at all.  People like
pictures in PowerPoint presentations.  Instead of TELLing about a
Braille device, I could have SHOWN it to them.

I felt ashamed once more then.

--Kynn

-- 
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@reef.com>
Technical Developer Liaison
Reef North America
Accessibility - W3C - Integrator Network
________________________________________
BUSINESS IS DYNAMIC. TAKE CONTROL.
________________________________________
http://www.reef.com

Received on Saturday, 27 October 2001 12:10:53 UTC