- From: David Jakob <David.Jakob@xist.com>
- Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 20:48:05 -0400
- To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>, "Kynn Bartlett" <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
Kynn et al., I can certainly relate to your frustrations -- albeit from a slightly different angle. I manage an Internet training program for an agency of a Canadian federal government department. In anticipation of encouraging Canadian federal government departments to build more accessible Websites, I have been developing and preparing a training course on accessible Web design for delivery in October and November. We coupled our traditional marketing mechanisms with a media blitz in local Ottawa publications to heighten awareness of this course, and in essence, heighten awareness of what should a highly politicized issue in Ottawa. As our national capital, home to dozens of federal departments and agencies which are mandated to make their information available to all Canadians, and as a centre of hi-tech where organizations want to be on the cutting edge, Ottawa should be a prime target for this course. To date, registration has been abysmal. We've been running a successful Internet training program since 1994 and seemed to have always responded to current and future needs in our program. In those years we have never undertaken an advertising campaign as we are currently doing. Yet even with this aditional exposure the environment doesn't seem to acknowledge the importance of this issue. To further frustrate my efforts, in the spring my company did a site redesign for a client in conjunction with the HTML Writer Guild's accessibility project to implement and test the WAI Page Authoring Guidelines. More than four months have elapsed since we handed over the materials for inclusion on the site yet the redesign is still not available. I'd like to use this site as a reference to encourage more of my clients to do the same but I'm stonewalled. Perhaps everyone is waiting for the likes of Microsoft and Netscape to miraculously solve these accessibility problems with future versions of their browsers, thus saving all of us countless hours and dollars in redesign. Or maybe our target market is already on the cutting edge and implementing accessibility solutions. Of course, on both counts, I'm not holding my breath... I suppose then we are left to persist regardless of who responds, how they respond, and how many respond, to necessary efforts that must precipitate change. Hhhhmmm, it must have been the recent visit to Ottawa by Nelson Mandela that inspired me... "We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right." Nelson Mandela David J. Jakob, XIST Information Services & Technology Inc. Ottawa, Ontario phone: (613)234-9621 fax: (613)234-9564 http://xist.com David.Jakob@xist.com 1-888-ASK-XIST -----Original Message----- From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> Date: September 29, 1998 4:51 PM Subject: The Difficulty of Talking About Accessibility for the * Recently, as you may be aware, the HTML Writers Guild has been very supportive of accessibility initiatives -- declaring one month earlier this year as 'Accessibility Month', setting up a project to provide feedback on the page author guidelines, running a class on accessible web design. We've also extended a discount on membership dues to Guild members who are physically disabled. The problem, though, comes whenever we try to talk about what we're doing and impress our members (more than 75,000 of them) with the importance of designing pages that can be accessed by everyone. If we leave it vague, and don't mentioned handicapped users, they simply blend into "everyone", and most web authors are completely unaware that we don't simply mean 'people who use Netscape AND people who use MSIE' but rather 'people who can't even see pictures on the screen'. However, whenever we mention 'handicapped users', 'designing for the blind', 'disabled member discounts', or 'physically challenged individuals', we get flames. Not from the people who can see, mind you -- but from angry physically disabled folks who are upset not at what we're doing, but with the terms we use. They don't like 'blind', or they do like 'blind' but they don't like 'handicapped'; this group over here doesn't like 'disabled', while this one can't stand 'challenged'. Each action we think we're doing that's a step forward -- such as letting web designers know that not everyone uses a visual-based browser -- seems to be a step backwards in the eyes of some, and we hear about it in email. It's discouraging for us, too. The Guild administration really doesn't like being flamed over semantics, especially since it should be obvious from context that we're not going out of our way to be either insensitive or insulting. The headaches of trying to figure out what the 'right terms' to use are daunting, and may even lead some to figure "why bother??" -- especially when it seems there are _no_ phrases we can use that will please _everyone_. So, should we simply not mention blind web users when talking about designing for universal accessibility? Should our material on voice browsers focus on phones and cars and not mention people who can't see? Is it better to leave out the idea of blind people entirely when talking about aural style sheets? Do you need to know that handicapped folks exist in order to use the ALT attribute correctly? Or should we simply accept word-choice flames as the "price" of doing the right thing? -- Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com> http://www.idyllmtn.com/~kynn/ Chief Technologist & Co-Owner, Idyll Mountain Internet; Fullerton, California Enroll now for my online stylesheets (CSS) class! http://www.hwg.org/classes/ The voice of the future? http://www.hwg.org/opcenter/w3c/voicebrowsers.html
Received on Tuesday, 29 September 1998 20:49:34 UTC