Re: user stats

James Craig:
>>>>Does any one have any stats on the percentage of users that surf 
>>>>with Javascript turned off or know where I can find said info? 
>>>>Same for people not using flash...
>>
>>That is not the right question for this forum. You should be asking 
>>"Does anyone have any stats on the percentage of users with 
>>relevant disabilities who surf with JavaScript turned off?"
>
>I don't know if that's necessarily the case, Joe. Accessibility, and 
>hence the Web Accessibility Initiative, is about providing access to 
>all. Historically, the disabled have been overlooked so a major 
>focus of WAI is advocacy for this group, but accessibility should 
>also include people with substandard equipment, slow Internet 
>connections, and even people who surf with JavaScript turned off, 
>for whatever reason.

B.K. DeLong:
>I have to agree. Way back when I started encouraging and teaching 
>accessibility as a part of the authoring process, I moved away from 
>singling out those with disabilities as the only reason one should 
>make a site more accessible.

Serving people with disabilities *is* the only reason to make a site 
accessible. Anything else is an unrelated benefit.

The WAI mission:

<http://www.w3.org/WAI/about.html#mi>

>The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) commitment to lead the Web to 
>its full potential includes promoting a high degree of usability for 
>people with disabilities.


The WCAG WG mission:

<http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/new-charter-2000.html#mission>

>The mission of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 
>working group is twofold:
>     1. to produce Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0;
>     2. to document accessible techniques for W3C Recommendations (such as
>        XML, RDF, SMIL, SVG, and MathML) as well as specific other Web
>        technologies such as ECMA Script
>
>as guidance for Web content authors and developers to create Web 
>content that is accessible and usable by the widest audience 
>possible.


I suppose "by the widest audience possible" means we can never 
support anything later than Netscape 0.9, but the thrust of our work 
on these issues is clear: Accessibility to people with disabilities 
is why we're doing it. Everything else is gravy.

Note that a browser or device is not a person, hence is not also a 
person with a disability. A browser or device that cannot understand 
JavaScript is also neither a person nor a person with a disability.

>Of course I don't have to remind you that many new devices such as 
>mobile handhelds or phones work without JavaScript, whether the user 
>is disabled or not.

And how long is that going to last?
-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
     Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>
     Expect criticism if you top-post

Received on Tuesday, 26 August 2003 12:44:46 UTC