Re: Fw: answers to questions on:AOL Focused Beta Test for Accessibility

In a message dated 8/22/01 1:19:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
j.chetwynd@btinternet.com writes:


> there is some truth in catch22, however there is little point in giving
> visual tests to blind users...

Perhaps. However, the critical point is that doing an accessibility test with 
able-bodied personnel is inherently fatally flawed. The way I look at this, 
as bitter as I am:

99.99999% of normals (able-bodied people) will never have a clue about the 
needs of the disabled. They won't care, either. In fact, they will typically 
be rather hostile to the idea of doing ANYTHING to help the disabled (anyone 
remember how long it took to get ADA passed? IIRC, it took something like 10 
to 20 YEARS.), with maybe every millionth person actually giving a damn. 
Everyone else will fake it so they don't look bigoted, and think the disabled 
(especially the blind) can't tell when they're lying.

So why the HELL is AOL using them for a test designed more for, well, us?

It's blind kids that were able to break through the phone system way back 
when (remember the story of Joe Engressias? Phreaker of legend, who happened 
to be blind), before any normal kid ever tried. Never mind that they couldn't 
see the circuitry. Ma Bell was freaking out, cuz Ma Bell lost umpteen 
millions to bored blind kids with nothing else to do, and fiddling with the 
phone system as a hobby for lack of anything better!

If we can do that, if we can screw around with phone systems and high-voltage 
circuitry and create legends in the process, WHY THE HELL do you think we 
can't do something like an accessibility test, AOL? We're the ones who have 
to suffer when you screw up cuz you never asked us!

More calmly...If it was JUST using able-bodied people, I wouldn't mind AS 
MUCH.

But using normals and PAYING them to test? That's beyond cheap. That's beyond 
fishy. That's beyond lying. That's insulting!

Use the disabled! PAY US TOO DAMMIT!

<deep breath> Now, I was looking at this kind of sarcastically. Everything in 
there, however, is actually my opinion. I'm just using humor to keep myself 
sane. In the case of the blind phone phreakers...Head over to Kwazaa, and 
download a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook 2000. I think there was an Esquire 
article on it years ago, too.

John