Re: Disability statistics

On Sunday 16 December 2001 02:25, Denise Wood wrote:
|   >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.
|
|   I agree in principle with everything you have said here Kynn but wouldn't
| it strengthen the business case as well as the Section 508 compliance pitch
| if we edited your response to read:

But isn't "Section 508" some kind of American law?
I have to admit that heared about this "section" for the first time on 
W3C-WAI lists.
Section 508 certanly has no implication on web development here (in Russia, 
and AFAIK in Eastern Europe), people are not aware about this section and 
have no reason to be compliant with it.
 
|
|   "Hey, web design companies - if you write accessible HTML you can extend
| your client market to include xxxxxx people with disabilities as well as
| increase your prospects for securing government contracts !"

The worst thing IMO what *commercial* company can do is to build up its 
business on securing governmental contracts.
Building web site with extra features for *accessibility* obviosuslu costs 
extra money.
In my opinion, so far you can't justify increased costs (for developing 
somewhat-compliant web site) with extra auditory.
Let me give you simple example.
For development of one (hypotetical) web site, I need 3 persons working on it 
for 1 month.
They have salary, say, US $500 per month.
Most likely, these people wil not be English-speaking, as... having 
English-speaking people will double the cost (thier salary).
And, finally, if I get someone who can understand what this list (or other 
W3C lists) is about - his salary will be minimum $1500.
So, is it cost-effective to support those standards? No, not at this moment.
 
I also have concern that Deaf or Blind people just can't pay same money as 
Normal (people who can hear and see) people. Usually those people have no 
money to spend at all - as they live on governmental pension, which is quite 
small.
So, it's some kind of people which you unlikely will have as customers.
Why someone should spend money to please those people? There is no commercial 
reason for that. Only *moral*.

Therefor I fully agree with Kynn Bartlett:
<quote>
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.
</quote>
  
|
|   Denise

-- 

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Received on Sunday, 16 December 2001 08:31:48 UTC