Re: Lack of awareness example

On 31 Jul 2018, at 23:07, Shawn Henry wrote:

> Hi EOWG folks,
>
> Occasionally we talk about the level of awareness for accessibility. I 
> noted this from a WebAIM thread 
> <https://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?thread=8872#post4>:
>
> <quote>
>
> As a customer I am asking for WCAG compliance rating when I look to 
> buy new
> systems and 95% of the time I hear: "What's WCAG, I've never heard of 
> it in
> 30 years of sales".
>
> <end quote>

I think the rest of the email is also interesting for us. We have to 
reach out and educate people developing frameworks for an inverse 
trickle down effect. Its the basis is accessible, stuff is less likely 
to break built on top of the stack.

<quote>

> Most of the time companies just say they will add in accessibility 
> later,
> but they don't give a date and don't want to work with me to add
> accessibility.
> This is the wrong approach. You can't just "add" accessibility. You 
> need to
> design your product or service to the widest number of users possible, 
> then
> you may consider your product usable by a specific group of users.
> It's really the company's fault for not getting UX testers for all the
> possible users they wanted to serve, or evaluating the product from 
> the
> developer for different features that need to be included.
> It's also the tools the developer is using. If they use most widget
> frameworks from React, for example, Screen reader users won't be able 
> to
> use them. There is no way for the developer to know this without 
> testing
> them self.

</quote>

Currently many organizations think that accessibility can be fixed or 
addressed later. That it is a technical hurdle instead of a human one. 
Accessibility needs to be a cornerstone of everyone’s education. From 
the project manager over the content strategists over the graphic 
designer to the videographer, coder, implementer.

Eric


--

Eric Eggert
Web Accessibility Specialist
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Received on Wednesday, 1 August 2018 07:30:59 UTC