Re: contact with developers (was RE: webwatch-l What To Do About .gif Files)

Hi,
A question that comes to mind is what would be motivating people to make
their web pages accessible.  That might be something to include when researching
developers.  Another question is how much effort are they willing to
put into making the web pages accessible?  What priority is there for
accessibility in the web pages?
Scott

> 
> As part of my research I am intending to contact developers to find out how
> they would like to learn about accessibility.  It seems to be important to
> discover whether they would like to read Guidelines and use checklists, or
> use automatic checkers like Bobby, or attend courses or workshops, or, as
> Kelly suggests, if they use authoring tools, whether they think these
> should produce accessible HTML.  Or, indeed, whether they would like a
> combination of all these things!  In my opinion, if we can find out how
> people would prefer to be educated, we have a much better chance of
> succeeding.
> 
> It may be that some developers have never thought about access for people
> with disabilities let alone how, for example, a blind person uses the Web.
> Therefore developers may also like to learn more about these practicalities
> in order to put guidelines etc into a more real context.
> 
> It is also possible that the person who creates a page does not have any
> control over some aspects of its design.  I came across an interesting
> situation recently where a researcher for a large UK company was creating
> Web pages for his particular project.  The pages contained frames, very
> small fonts, and clashing text and background colours.  When I asked about
> this he said that all of these things were imposed on him by the company's
> webmaster and so my contact had no control over it.  Obviously, there are
> many different layers here for us to consider.
> 
> As I am just beginning this part of my research, I would be happy to hear
> from anyone who has any interesting ideas about how to go about this.
> 
> Chetz
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Chetz Colwell
> Sensory Disabilities Research Unit
> Department of Psychology
> University of Hertfordshire
> Hatfield
> AL10 9AB
> Tel: 01707 284630
> e-mail: c.g.colwell@herts.ac.uk
>

Received on Monday, 1 December 1997 16:02:40 UTC