Re: WCAG 2.0 and JAWS

Hi, Karen and all,

Common people don't need to understand electricity to turn on a light, 
but if you want to sell light bulbs, you do need to. Maybe marketers 
don't like fire extinguishers because they "don't look good on that 
wall", but they don't fight against them because there is a law that 
must be met.

Of course, many of us concentrate a lot of effort talking about positive 
aspects of Web accessibility, not only here but also out of the 
accessibility community. We try to convince developers, managers, 
marketers and others about those benefits that go beyond the needs of 
disabled people and can produce higher ROI. We talk about SEO, 
Usability, User Experience, bandwidth and speed, optimisation and many 
other things. There are also many articles talking about the "business 
case" for accessibility, for example the WAI one [1], and I know there 
is a research project funded by the European Commission, altough I 
cannot give you a reference now.

But, for a moment, let's suppose that Web Accessibility were not 
rentable, that it is just something that -many- developers must do 
because it is a legal requirement. And in many cases it is, so 
developers working in the real world MUST know about it and do it; even 
if they don't like it or haven't been educated to do it; even if 
marketers don't see the benefits or don't know a word about Web 
accessibility. They have to do it. Point.

And in those cases it is THEIR responsibility to search for the 
information on how to meet the legal requirements, and even paying for 
it or contracting others to train their teams or audit their websites. I 
cannot understand why these developers or marketers think they can 
simply ignore Web accessibility because they cannot see the benefits. Of 
course, sometimes they are -still- not legally required to do it, but in 
many cases they are, and they must go and search for the information.

For everyone else (for those that are not legally required to comply 
with accessibility), yes, we still need education. For some of them we 
might need figures that demonstrate financial results, but in many cases 
I think it is just a matter of explaining the differences and showing 
how people with disabilities use the Web. And I think this education is 
being done, not only by the W3C but also by many others. But, of course, 
it is not targeted to the general public, but to marketers, project 
managers, designers and developers, who are the people that can change 
the situation.

Regards,
Ramón.

[1] Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for your Organization
http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/


Karen wrote :

 > Has the W3C a public relations policy to inform about Web accessibility?

Received on Saturday, 28 July 2012 19:30:29 UTC