Re: Call for Review: Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization - update

Please see my comments below for these pages. They are all OPTIONAL.

On 4 May 2009, at 18:04, Shawn Henry wrote:

>    http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/bcase/Overview.html

1. In this paragraph "While accessibility focuses on people with  
disabilities, accessibility also benefits older users, mobile phone  
users and other individuals, as well as organizations that develop  
accessible products. Older users with age-related accessibility needs  
are an increasingly important customer base for most organizations as  
the percentage of older users is significantly increasing.  
Organizations with accessible Web sites can also benefit from search  
engine optimization, increased customer loyalty, demonstration of  
corporate social responsibility, and reduced legal risk.". I think  
the second half of the first sentence does not add much to the  
overall message of that sentence ("as well as organisations..."),  
instead I would recommend to talk about the benefits of accessibility  
for people with low literacy, people with low bandwidth connections,  
etc.

In this parag., we can also add a sentence about the benefits of  
accessibility for all, for instance the Mobile Web or when temporary  
disabilities are experienced.

2. In the following sentence "In order to be willing to invest the  
initial costs, many organizations need to understand the social,  
technical, and financial benefits of Web accessibility and the  
expectations of the returns throughout the organization.", it would  
be good to add legal factors as well so the sentence would read "In  
order to be willing to invest the initial costs, many organizations  
need to understand the social, technical, financial and legal factors  
of Web accessibility and the expectations of the returns throughout  
the organization."

3. The section "How to use this document" introduces the five pages  
that form this resource suite but it doesn't present what these pages  
are. I think it would be good to list those five pages here, at least  
mention what they are. I know they are explained in detail in the  
following section, but here it is not clear what these pages are.

4. In the section "Factors in a Business Case for Web Accessibility",  
under social factors, we can also talk about the benefits of  
accessibility for the Mobile Web.

5. In the section "Examples of How Factors Differ Across  
Environments", under "government ministry or agency", we can also  
talk about the cost-savings in in-person or paper-based services when  
people are able to use their services from their mobile devices.

6.  In the section "Examples of How Factors Differ Across  
Environments", under "educational institution", we can also talk  
about the benefits of accessible Web for mobile Web based learning.

7.  In the section "Examples of How Factors Differ Across  
Environments", under "SME", we can also talk about the benefits of  
accessibility for being able to support Mobile commerce.

8. I think in the related resources section, it would be good to re- 
order the listed resources so that "WAI Resources" is the first item.

>    http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/bcase/soc.html

1. In the first parag, I guess the last link label has to be  
"Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization:  
Overview". This comment is valid for all the other sub-pages.

2. In the section "Identifying Social Factors for a Specific  
Organisation", in the last question, we can also give "Mobile Web" as  
an example.

3. In the section "Number of people affected", we can also briefly  
talk about the number of mobile Web users. I think it is not a good  
idea to give a number as it changes everyday, but we can briefly  
mention that there quite a lot of mobile Web users who can benefit  
from accessible Web sites.

4. In the Section "Overlap with Digital Divide Issues", we can also  
briefly mention the work by the "Mobile Web for Social Development,  
http://www.w3.org/2008/MW4D/" working group. How developing countries  
could possibly benefit from accessible Web? I know that the following  
sections briefly mentions people that use older technologies, etc.,  
but it might be good to explicitly talk about that work here.

5. In the section "Web Accessibility Benefits People with and Without  
Disabilities", we can also add a subsection that introduces the  
overlaps between mobile and accessible Webs.

6. I am not sure if it is a good idea to refer to specific  
checkpoints or success criteria in each subsection of the section   
"Web Accessibility Benefits People with and Without Disabilities". Do  
we assume that people who will read these pages will have technical  
knowledge of these guidelines? Wouldn't it be better to briefly  
introduce the overlaps and then refer to the other documents that  
give the technical overlaps?.

>    http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/bcase/tech.html

1. Similar to my previous comment, do we assume that people who will  
read these documents, will have technical knowledge of the  
guidelines? If that's the assumption, please ignore my comment, but  
if that's not the assumption, I wonder if it is a good idea to refer  
to WCAG 2.0 success criteria and WCAG 1.0 checkpoints. These  
references are also not linked to the relevant technical document, so  
if one wants to read more information about them, then they have to  
go and manually find them.

>    http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/bcase/fin.html

1. In the section "Increased Web Site Use",  in this sentence  
"Accessible sites can be used by more people -- including people with  
disabilities, older people, people with low literacy, people who are  
not fluent in the language of the site, people with low bandwidth  
connections to the Internet, people with older technologies, and new  
and infrequent Web users, as discussed in Social Factors -- thus  
increasing the market segments and number of people who can  
successfully use the site.", we can also talk about the Mobile Web  
users.

2. In the section "Increased Web Site Use", in the part "Increases  
potential use in more situations", we can extend this and talk about  
the temporary disabilities that people can experience (e.g., low  
bandwidth, connection charges, device limitations (no mouse, etc)).

SOME EXRA COMMENTS:
1. I realised that in some pages of the suite you question if you  
have enough evidence. Regarding the evidence for each of these  
factors, what about referring to studies like this:
<http://inova.snv.jussieu.fr/evenements/colloques/servonline/Actes/ 
description_ang.php?id=49&num=45>

Received on Tuesday, 12 May 2009 08:15:17 UTC