Re: W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Statement on Web Access Report from UK Disability Rights Commission

>     From: Julian Voelcker <[16]asp@tvw.net>
>
>It's a shame they don't follow it up by advising on how to get in 
>touch with proper testers.

Accessibility experts or disabled people? The former are easy to 
find, the latter extremely difficult even for Jakob Nielsen.

<http://joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/Chapter14.html#h2-1325>

>     From: Tina Holmboe <[16]tina@greytower.net>
>  > I forgot to mention, this was one of the points being stressed in the
>>  interview - you need to get sites checked by people with disabilities
>>  and cannot rely solely on the automatic systems.
>
>   I've heard this argument before, and I still don't agree with it.

It's absolutely best to test with actual disabled people. Quite 
obviously each person is different; that's a starement of the obvious 
rather than a counterargument.

>     From: David Poehlman <[15]poehlman1@comcast.net>
>     Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 09:41:11 -0400
>
>Tina Has it the nail on the head here.  At the risk of putting myself out of
>a job, while it is true that automated tools cannot do it all (without a lot
>of work), For testing against guidelines, you need only people who can test
>well whether they are disabled or not.

You also need actual disabled people.

As we know, in most cases it simply won't be possible to run user 
testing of Web sites. When it is possible, people with disabilities 
should be included. It is, however, extremely hard to find them.
-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org | <http://joeclark.org/access/>
     Author, _Building Accessible Websites_ | <http://joeclark.org/book/>
     Expect criticism if you top-post

Received on Wednesday, 14 April 2004 12:36:11 UTC