Re: Nielsen

At 10:34 AM 2/17/2000 , William Loughborough wrote:
>Jakob Nielsen has an interesting comment: "It would not surprise me if
>we start seeing money-back guarantee in design contracts that state that
>clients don't have to pay for sites that violate these rules." This in
>regard to the Priority 1 items in our Guidelines. What a nice concept!

In a recent discussion on another list I'm on, someone offered the
excuse that any inaccessible sites he'd designed were the fault of
his cheap and short-sighted clients who refused to pay the extra
cost necessary to make the site accessible.

I countered by explaining Idyll Mountain Internet's philosophy --
web accessibility is a natural and integral part of doing a site,
and not an optional add-on; in fact, we'd probably charge more if
someone DEMANDED that we make the site INaccessible.  ("No alt text
on your images?  Well, you're the customer.  We'll charge $50 per
image to remove alt text.")

I think that if you say "and of course we'll make sure your page is
accessible to as broad an audience as possible" a design client will
buy that; if you say "well, for an extra cost, I can go to all the
trouble of making sure that small percentage of people who are
blind are able to access your site -- if you REALLY want me to,"
then it's no surprise that the cheaper, budget-conscious folks would
resist.

We have an education problem here -- we have to change the mindset
of web designers who view accessibility as an optional plug-in and
not an integral part of the process.

-- 
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                   http://www.kynn.com/
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet      http://www.idyllmtn.com/
Become AWARE of Web Accessibility!                  http://aware.hwg.org/
The Spring 2000 Virtual Dog Show is now open!     http://www.dogshow.com/

Received on Thursday, 17 February 2000 13:40:33 UTC