Re: accessible banking:

From: "Katie Smith" <ksmith@no10.x.gsi.gov.uk>
To: "'david poehlman'" <david.poehlman@handsontechnologeyes.com>; "Kelly 
Pierce" <kpierce2000@earthlink.net>; "Access Systems" <accessys@smart.net>
Cc: <Kurt_Mattes@bankone.com>; <John.Carpenter@pdms.com>; 
<w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 7:04 AM
Subject: RE: accessible banking:


> OK, so if 95% of people use Windows, how come only 77% of visitors to our
> website are using IE? (this figure is on a downward trend as well).
>
> Kelly - I agree to a certain extent that this is not about accessibility 
> for
> disabled users, but personally, my interest in accessibility extends 
> beyond
> catering for disability - to me it's about offering choice to consumers 
> and
> that is a commercial choice.  Does any business want to risk excluding a
> growing group of potential customers purely on the basis they have chosen
> not to use a Microsoft product?  I'm sure no more than they would wish to
> risk missing the potential revenues to be earned from disabled customers.
>
> I guess my point is that if banks choose not to make this effort, it will 
> be
> their loss.

Katie,

I did a quick search for market share data and found:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

which shows that the windows family of OS has about a 90 percent market 
share and Mac and Linux have a five percent market share with I assume 
others too small to count.  internet explorer is similar to your usage data 
with about 70 percent of website visitors.  what accounts for the 
difference?  I think it is a result of the alternatives getting better and 
innovating while Microsoft has barely developed IE in the past few years. 
More people are willing to try something else.  this is not to say that 
blind people are doing this necessarily as the blind tend in my experience 
to trail mainstream trends but eventually follow them in a delayed manner.

As a global concept, accessibility is an idea for everyone, accommodating 
diverse needs and systems.  I think in the United States when we hear the 
term we get on edge and sharpen the focus in a legal context.  Perhaps we 
need a different word to describe the global meaning or just need to clarify 
better.

the usage data does indeed suggest a significant trend happening.  The large 
banks are like any big business:  slow to respond to market trends and 
forces.  I would not be surprised to find them still insisting on IE even 
though IE drops to fewer than 50 percent of visitors to major websites. 
Smaller organizations are more nimble and responsive.  eventually the 
biggies will catch up.  they always do.

Kelly

Received on Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:13:25 UTC