Re: Web Accessibility Myths and The Kynn Challenge (was: Looking

At 02:55 PM 10/15/1999 , Scott Luebking wrote:
>Unfortunately, I still need to demonstrate that the myth is false by
>showing counter-examples before the web designer is given directions
>about accessibility as a design consideration.

By the way, are you really saying that unless other sites are
proven accessible, your web designer won't create accessible
web sites, despite the fact that anyone with the barest understanding
of web accessibility can see, quite obviously, that accessible
design will _not_ affect functionality and appearance?

Is your designer just thick, or does she somehow have some sort
of proof that accessible web design _will_ harm a site's appearance
and functionality?

It's very hard to fight at shadows, and in this case, the shadows are
your web designer's ignorance and misconceptions.  It's not enough
for her to hear from people who actually do understand the subject
that web accessibility is not harmful?

I'm really at a loss as to what to say.  The WCAG were released in
May of this year, and it's been a VERY hard uphill battle, thanks
to misinformation like those spread by your web designer, to get
ANYONE to comply with them over the last 5 months.  If people
continue to demand "proof" such as this, then we may never actually
get around to accessible web design being the standard!  "Nobody
else is doing it, why should I?  I have no knowledge at all of the
issues, but I'm SURE it would simply WRECK my design!"

Why do you listen to that kind of argument?


-- 
Kynn Bartlett                                    mailto:kynn@hwg.org
President, HTML Writers Guild                    http://www.hwg.org/
AWARE Center Director                          http://aware.hwg.org/

Received on Friday, 15 October 1999 18:07:54 UTC