- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 00:10:23 -0500 (EST)
- To: Kynn Bartlett <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>
- cc: Access Systems <accessys@smart.net>, Joe Clark <joeclark@joeclark.org>, <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
I agree with Kynn that the business case is the weakest argument that we can make. However, it is also the argumment that I think in many cases must be won, at however trivial a level, in order to convince some companies - in a public company the directors are required to ensure return on investment, and those who don't do it are breaking the law and in most countries can face harsh legal penalties. In addition, there are many companies who are not interested because they haven't done any analysis of the business case. Phone companies tend not to think of Deaf or Blind people as customers for the mobile phone market, but in fact those groups are unusually good customers for mobile telephones in Australia, since people who are Deaf use text messaging (SMS in the GSM world) extensively, and people who are blind have great difficulty finding a public telephone (except by accident). It would be intersting to look at the example of tesco, a supermarket chain in england with an online site. They did a lot of work with the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) on their online shopping, and as I understand it the following factors were at play: Costs 1. Cost of accessibility refit (obviously higher if it is done specifically for accessibility refit, rather than as part of overall design and upgrade plan) 2. Cost of publicising new accessibility 3. Legal liability arising from blocking accessibility 4. Negative publicity from same Benefits 5. Public relations benefit of new accessibility (media coverage, etc) 6. Money spent by new customers I suppose that figures for most of these things are not readily available to the public (although due diligence requirements would suggest that companies in places like Australia, the US and the UK ought to have this information for themselves), and of course they will vary from business to business, but the equation is fairly simple. There are some of these that are variable - many companies spend money to spin the publicity in their favour or hire good lawyers, while there are public organisations that actively campaign to increase the publicity (negative and positive). In addition there are organisations that can help promote a service which is accessible to its members - groups such as the RNIB, VicDeaf, and the Arthritis Association actively search for products and services that are useful, and promote them if they are good. Chaals On Sat, 15 Dec 2001, Kynn Bartlett wrote: At 11:27 PM -0500 12/14/01, Access Systems wrote: >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?? How much would it cost to get it? That's the business case. Business is all about spending your money in the way that generates the most money. If it will cost me $1M to advertise to blind people, and $25,000 to make an accessible web site, and there are only 20% of blind people online, then it may make sense to spend $1M to advertise to non-blind people who are online in greater numbers, and who constitute a greater percentage of the population. Business case statistics of "how much money are available" do not help the cause of accessibility, because from a purely business standpoint, unless you are going to be a business which caters in large part to the needs of the disabled, it's probably not worth the cost to meet those needs. If it were _true_ that meeting the needs of disabled people is the way to riches, don't you think we'd see it online and offline? The reason companies currently support accessibility is because someone made a moral (or PR, or government-driven) decision to do the right thing, not because there's billions of dollars to be made targetting people with disabilities. This is why I think that the business case argument is the weakest possible argument we can make, and why I think that efforts in that direction -- to convince someone that we know more about how their business should operate than they do -- are always going to be wasted. (A better business case is "hey, web design companies! if you write accessible HTML you might get government contracts easier!" -- but that is a 508 business case, not a general web accessibility business case.) --Kynn -- Charles McCathieNevile http://www.w3.org/People/Charles phone: +61 409 134 136 W3C Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI fax: +1 617 258 5999 Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia (or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)
Received on Sunday, 16 December 2001 00:11:22 UTC