RE: URGENT: Help

Francisco,

I think the point should be made that the cost is actually reduced for the
following reasons:

Much of accessibility is good design. A well designed site will serve more
customers and achieve its purpose.  This in and of itself increases the cost
effectiveness of the site.

An accessible site can serve more people, quicker and more effectively than
an inaccessible site. It allows for more customers for the money spent.  It
reduces the need to deliver the information in other ways such as a live
person. With many years of experience in the customer service area I can
tell you that the web can reduce expenses greatly.

Virtually all of the techniques used to make a site more accessible improve
the overall quality of the site so if these are incorporated in the original
design specifications it should not raise the price of the site at all, it
may in fact reduce the cost and surely reduces the need for retrofitting.

I hope this is helpful.

Mike Burks
Chairman Internet Society SIG for Access to the Internet for people with
Disabilities
http://www.isoc.org/isoc/access/

Member Advisory Board International Center for Disability Resources on the
Internet
http://www.icdri.org



-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Francisco Godinho
Sent: Friday, July 23, 1999 6:54 AM
To: WAI Interest Group
Cc: guia.pasig@bigfoot.com; Dolphin - Neill McBride; Hadar - Hans
Sundstrõm; CAPS - Luis Azevedo; IBM - SNS - Phill Jenkins; IBM - SNS -
Jim Thatcher; IBM - Robert B. Mahaffey; Javier Romañach; Alexis
Donnelly; Emmanuelle Gutiérrez y R.; Francisco Antonio Soeltl; Hadar -
Jens Hansen; SIVA - Massimo Ferrario; WAI - Judy Brewer; Ricardo Silva;
Microsoft - Gary M. Moulton; Microsoft - David A. Bolnick; NCAM - Larry
Goldberg; NCAM - Geoff Freed; Robert Neff; SIVA - Renzo Andrich; Sun -
Earl Jonhson; Sylvie Duchateau; Waddell, Cynthia
Subject: URGENT: Help
Importance: High


Dear friends,

The Portuguese law about web accessibility is ready to be
approved or rejected by the Government in few days.

This law, in Portugal, could be very important to
web accessibility in Europe and Brazil.

However, there is one question that is crucial for the decision:
Some members of the Government think that
accessible web authoring is expensive and difficult.

I have 24 hours to summarize some arguments
(one page) to overcome this lack of information.
I would be grateful if you could help me today.

In the W3C/WAI FAQs, I  found some arguments:

9. Does it cost more to make a site accessible?
http://www.w3.org/1999/05/WCAG-REC-fact.html#text

Designing a new site to be accessible should not add significantly to
development cost. Some aspects of accessibility, such as use of style
sheets, can actually reduce the costs of maintaining or updating sites, and
this benefit should increase over time as style sheets are more evenly
implemented in browsers and available as an authoring strategy in authoring
tools.

For existing sites, the ease or difficulty of making sites accessible
depends on a variety of factors, including the size of a site, the
complexity of a site, and the authoring tool that was used to make a site.
Periodic upgrades or reviews of sites can be good opportunities to review
the accessibility of sites. When compared with the broader audience that a
site is available to, and the greater usability for other users as well,
accessible sites can be cost-effective.
[end]

I think that I need more arguments.

Should I alert for the production's cost of alternative formats
like braille or audio tapes  ?

Thank you for your help
Francisco Godinho
Co-coordinator of the Petition for the Accessibility of the Portuguese
Internet
PASIG - Portuguese Accessibility Special Interest Group
http://www.acessibilidade.net/index_eng.html

Received on Friday, 23 July 1999 12:03:29 UTC