How to convince businesses to be accessible...

As a designer, I know that the majority of people out there are not going
to want to sacrifice the flashy, graphics and such to be accessible.  This
includes giving up the text as graphics.  How do we convince them that they
will have a greater audience if they meet accessibility guidelines?  I am
not having much luck finding statistics.  Have there been any economic
impact studies on the numbers of e-commerce dollars not being spent because
online shopping centers are not accessible to people who find the net to be
a freedom and an increase in independence?  So far the only supporting
statistic I have found is a statement from a Harris Poll that says that
disabled internet users are on the internet twice as much as non-disabled
internet users.  It will take more than that to convince businesses to be
compliant with accessibility guidelines!

Kristi Schueler
USFS - WOD,  FC AQM Systems
Web Developer (contractor)
(970)295-5801 (voice)
(970)295-5809 (fax)

Received on Wednesday, 4 October 2000 18:00:33 UTC