Re: Jonathan's Analysis of the WAI Homepage

At 07:40 PM 4/12/2000 , Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>An important point to remember is that what is usability for a large group of
>people may amount to accessibilty for a smaller group. THink of curb-cuts in
>the physical world...

But it's also to remember that not all usability problems faced by
people with disabilities are automatically accessibility problems.

For example, the user interface to the HWG's online education program
is generally pretty poor -- it confuses people (blind and non-blind
students alike) but when someone who is blind asked me if our
interface is accessible, I answered, yes, it is -accessible-, because
it's equally unusable by people with or without disabilities!

So while I agree that there are some areas of overlap between
"usability for a larger group and accessibility for a smaller group,"
I caution us to remember that this is not a general rule.

-- 
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                   http://www.kynn.com/
Director of Accessibility, edapta                  http://www.edapta.com/
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet      http://www.idyllmtn.com/
AWARE Center Director                         http://www.awarecenter.org/
Next of Kynn: a quasi-regular web log           http://www.kynn.com/next/

Received on Sunday, 16 April 2000 13:53:34 UTC