RE: About ABBR

If the page authoring tools had this functionality to highlight a word,
right click and add ABBR or acronym, then it would be easy to implement with
reduced cost for rework.  This would permit a huge time savings for the
future!

So to advance the accept and use of any function, the honous is on the page
authoring tools to provide this!

/rob

		-----Original Message-----
		From:	Ann Navarro [mailto:ann@webgeek.com]
		Sent:	Saturday, February 19, 2000 10:31 AM
		To:	Kynn Bartlett
		Cc:	WAI Interest Group Emailing List
		Subject:	RE: About ABBR

		At 06:47 PM 2/18/00 -0800, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
		>At 10:19 AM 2/18/2000 , Ann Navarro wrote:

		>>It *cost us* no more to produce the site in that manner
than it would have
		>>to leave off ALT attributes, not include a doctype, and
rely on color alone
		>>for meaning, etc (see the checkpoints for priority 1
guidelines). 
		>
		>This is a specious argument because all of the work on the
HTML
		>Writers Guild web site has been done via volunteer labor.
(Most of
		>it mine.)  It would *cost* no more to produce the site
inaccessibly
		>than accessibly because it *cost* us nothing in the first
place.

		My point here, which the Guild has discussed both internally
and in other
		fora such as these, is that the "cost" -- be that volunteer
labor, paid
		staff, or paid consultants, does not have to changed based
on whether
		someone uses an ALT attribute, ABBR, or any other
accessibility checkpoint
		in the markup of a site. The expertise put into use on the
Guild site has
		been developed over the years through our participation in
W3C activities,
		and the learning of our volunteers and staff. 

		No one, least of all myself, is arguing that there isn't a
learning curve.
		However, the argument that the learning curve is so unique
or special that
		even professional web designers shouldn't be expected to
undertake it, or
		have it already as a part of their skill-set is untenable. 

		It's ironic that the voices proclaiming 'it would cost too
much' are the
		voices of larger companies who spend far more on their Web
presence than
		the average IMI client, or WebGeek client, or the colleges
and universities
		or governmental agencies who's sites are accessible today. 

		Judy's testimony before the House subcommittee last week
reminded us that
		the ADA doesn't necessarily allow "it would cost too much to
fix it" as
		defense for not having done it right in the first place. 

		Doing it right in the first place, of course, is far less
costly than
		hiring consultants to retrofit something. Why someone should
do it right in
		the first place is a discussion that, for this forum, would
be preaching to
		the choir. 

		Ann

Received on Saturday, 19 February 2000 10:44:18 UTC