- From: John M Slatin <john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu>
- Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 15:23:39 -0500
- To: "RUST Randal" <RRust@COVANSYS.com>, <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Randal RUST wrote: <blockquote> > (How do you validate accessibility if you can only measure usability?) We don't measure usability. It's always in the original project plan, and it gets tossed out as soon as the project budget gets crunched. The same with accessibility. Would you like to know how most clients have us validate accessibility? If we are using Dreamweaver and templates, then we validate the templates with BOBBY. If the templates pass, then we're good to go. There is not content within the templates, but the client doesn't care. They aren't about to spend the time to check every single page, in every possible state, for accessibility or usability. </blockquote> The fact that some (maybe even most) clients "don't care" and "aren't about to take the time" to do serious accessibility evaluation is not an argument against writing the best guidelines we can possibly write to provide the best guidance we can think of for those developers and clients who who *do* care and do want to know how best to meet the needs of a diverse audience. It *is* an argument to produce the best accessibility evaluation tools we can, and to train people as best we can to evaluate accessibility using both the tools and informed judgment. And for doing what we can to persuade clients that these are important issues to which they should commit resources, whether for legal, ethical, or financial reasons.
Received on Tuesday, 24 August 2004 20:23:41 UTC