Re: Disability statistics

On Sun, 4 Nov 2001, Kynn Bartlett wrote:

> At 04:34 AM 11/3/2001 , Joe Clark wrote:
> >I was reading the remarks about making a business case for accessibility, which I believe flatly cannot be done. It's purely an issue of ethics or legal compliance.

late reply but.

I think there is a business case possible.  in fact I found that in the
Baltimore Metro Area using only minimum SS payments as the per person
income, which is low balling because some will be making more $$$

and using that number and census data it was figured that there would be
over 7million dollars per month of disposable income by these persons.

How much do you (the business) want of that??

Bob

> 
> I think you're right; business cases tend to be very weak and actually
> avoid the issues of people with disabilities ("cell phones!" "search
> engines!") because when you're a minority group, especially one with
> limited means AND obstacles to use, statistics are generally speaking
> not your friend.
> 
> I've heard statistics used as "oh, huh! I never knew that" supporting
> evidence, but I've never seen a web developer or policymaker make a
> change just because the numbers are there.  At best, disability 
> stats are numeric trivia.
> 
> Frankly, I think the argument, "we may end up disabled ourselves and
> be unable to use the Internet we're building" has proven more
> compelling than any sort numbers we can report.
> 
> --Kynn
> 
> 
> --
> Kynn Bartlett <kynn@reef.com>
> Technical Developer Liaison
> Reef North America
> Accessibility - W3C - Integrator Network
> ________________________________________
> BUSINESS IS DYNAMIC. TAKE CONTROL.
> ________________________________________
> http://www.reef.com
> 

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Received on Friday, 14 December 2001 23:08:23 UTC