Re: wall st. journal "brace of new federal requirements could help out disabled web users

I think there are both factors at work here. It is interesting to note that
while the deaf community have a very large web presence, it is almost
invisible in much reporting of accessibility issues. THe barriers faced by
the deaf are often more complex than those faced by the blind, and therefore
less able to be rendered in an appropriate manner for "common journalism".
THe fact that one or two examples will suffice means the easy examplke (which
as Kynn pointed out tends to be blindness) is the one which gets into the
article.

I hope that does not remain the case for ever - the web provides some very
important benefits to people with limited mobility that can be easily
understood, and a little extension of people's understanding of the world is
often a good thing anyway.

Just my tuppeny worth on a friday evening

Charles

On Fri, 9 Jul 1999, Jason White wrote:

  It is interesting to notice the extent to which these articles tend to
  focus on vision impairment, as distinct from other types of disabilities.
  This is reflected in the examples cited and the choices of interviewees.
  Perhaps vision impairment is the most obvious circumstance that comes to
  mind when considering barriers to web access, or is it rather that there
  exists an especially outward-oriented group of highly intelligent and
  capable people interested in this field who happen to have vision
  impairments and who are easy to find from a journalist's perspective?
  
  Please note that no criticism whatsoever is intended here; I am simply
  inquiring into an apparently consistent (though not universal) tendency in
  the reporting of these issues.
  
  

--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

Received on Friday, 9 July 1999 18:35:01 UTC