Re: Note to listowners

> Who can you be an expert if you havent learned how to use the device that
> you are supposedly an expert on.  Are you just an overpaid jack of all
> trades master of none?  How is your client satisfaction record?  I mean
> the clients who USE your solution, not the company who you helped with the
> website.  [forced disclaimer based on hurt feelings of others on here] You
> meaning the general AT Accessibility expert and noone in particular.

I think there is a danger in confusing an expert in AT with an expert in web
accessibility principles. One is not the same as the other. It helps of
course to be familiar with some typical user situations and modalities of
use. But the principles of building accessible web sites must be
understandable by ordinary web designers or the whole thing is pointless.

I would contend that no one person can know all the ways in which all the
possible ATs are used by all the actual users, and be familiar with their
individual use cases. This is not the end of the world. It is essential that
the main principles are generic enough to be useful without such knowledge.

Encyclopaedic knowledge of AT is far from irrelevant, but it is also not the
whole story by a long chalk.

Received on Wednesday, 7 April 2004 17:39:39 UTC