RE: Disability statistics

At 1:56 PM -0500 12/16/01, Michael R. Burks wrote:
>This sounds like - "We don't need any ramps or accessible rest 
>rooms, no people in wheel chairs come here!"  or "We don't need any 
>TTY's no deaf people ever call us!" 

No, it sounds like legitimate market research, which is what people on
this list are inexplicably championing as a "good thing" for accessibility.

It's _not_.  Relying on a business case is bad because except for very
isolated cases, it's almost never a good idea to support a disabled
group of consumers, from a purely financial standpoint.  Without, say,
government subsidies, it's way too expensive to spend the money to make
your services (building, web site, whatever) accessible in return for
the amount of investment you get back.

Which is why we need to look at the arguments of justice and ethics
and morality as being more compelling -- if "we" (the W3C WAI) are
going to look at them at all.  (Frankly, I think we need a separate
organization for activism, as I believe the W3C is ill-suited for the
advocacy role in addition to the technical role.)

--Kynn

-- 
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                 http://kynn.com
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain            http://idyllmtn.com
Web Accessibility Expert-for-hire          http://kynn.com/resume
January Web Accessibility eCourse           http://kynn.com/+d201

Received on Sunday, 16 December 2001 15:14:05 UTC