Re: FYI: Microsoft Pledges Improved FrontPage

 Hope this is helpful:

As a person with limited vision, the phraseology isn't near as important as how
I'm treated.  When I was younger, I was more sensitive to 'words', but after 44
years the saying 'Sticks and stones...' is a pretty accurate ideal.  What does
bother me is the assumption that because I don't see as good as most, that I
will obviously not be able to perform my job as well as someone who is
'normal'.  Although I can read newspapers and see everything on the web (with
strong reading glasses), I do get close to what I am looking at.  Some interpret
this as not being able to see everything, which is not the case.  I simply get
closer than someone with 20/20.

After losing my job along with 200 others, I've made a career change and am
completing my AA in web design.  All I have left to do to complete it is an
internship and through all the classes I've taken, not one mention has been made
to address the accessibility issue.  I find this even more strange since the
college is the nearest one to the Microsoft campus.  I fear that going out and
looking for work, I will come across personnel managers who don't care about nor
have much knowledge of this issue and will see my visual limitations as a
hindrance in what they assume is a visual medium.  I would think that having
someone on their team that has limitations would be an asset to their company,
but that's just my thought.

I have always held the hope that this medium would be the great equalizer for
ALL, but the last couple of years it appears it has been less than so.  It is
people such as yourselves that will help ALL to have access to this potentially
wonderful medium.  Keep up the hard work!!

Guy Schlegel

Received on Tuesday, 6 October 1998 13:46:27 UTC