Re: Hello?

Wow, I can hardly believe what I'm reading here.

Design for accessibility does not mean making a site usable to a person who
is visually impaired. It includes people of many diabilities, including
visual, hearing, and cognitive disabilities. I wish I had the figures beside
me to quote from, but I know that the percentage of people with disabilities
in North America alone, makes designing for accessibility a smart business
practice.

Designing accessible web sites means designing for the widest audience
possible. It means making sites intuitive, easy to use, valuable sources of
information, that can be accessed by anyone.

I've included an article below about the values of designing accessible web
sites, that may help show some importance.

Best Regards,

Sarah Kuehnle
- Web Developer


Selling to the Disabled Can Mean More Than Ads

By MARTIN KROSSEL

LEXANDRIA, Va. - Carmen Jones, the founder of the Solutions Marketing Group
here, is a dynamo in a wheelchair. Her mission, which she pursues at
conventions and businesses across the country, is to help companies develop
and carry out marketing strategies aimed at people with disabilities.

But despite the growing awareness of an undertapped market that has led more
than 100 major American corporations to include people with disabilities in
advertising campaigns, Mrs. Jones emphasizes that reaching the disabled
requires more than simply including them in ads.

"Companies need to tell consumers with disabilities that they are valued
consumers," she said, "that they are not an inconvenience, that they will
have ease in accessing services, and where there is staff it will be skilled
in addressing their special needs."

To address such issues, another consulting firm founded by people with
disabilities, W. C. Duke Associates, trains employees in service industries
in the etiquette of dealing with customers with disabilities.

Bill Duke, who founded the firm with his wife, Cheryl, and their son, Paul,
has limited hearing; Paul, 32, has muscular dystrophy and has used a
wheelchair since he was a teenager.

The Dukes' Opening Doors training program encourages employees to
acknowledge the disability of customers and never to be afraid to ask how
they can assist them. But they are trained to follow instructions exactly,
and never to insist on providing assistance that the customer does not
request. Employees are also shown how to interact with individuals with
specific disabilities. For instance, they are taught how to describe the
arrangement of items on a table for a person who has limited sight.

The founders of both consulting companies say their goal is to benefit their
business clients as much as serving the cause of people with disabilities.
Mrs. Jones says she became convinced that her firm would be a success when
she discovered that no ad agency had a department for devising market
strategies aimed at consumers with disabilities.

"I didn't want to be in a position two or three years down the road," she
said, "where an existing company went into a business in which I knew that I
could have been successful."

Mrs. Jones and the Dukes say that having a disability themselves gives them
additional credibility as consultants. People with disabilities, they say,
are the "experts" because they know what it is like to encounter barriers.

Still, determining whether companies will generate extra profits from going
out of their way to reach people with disabilities is hard to quantify.
Evidence of increased sales is only anecdotal.

McDonald's (news/quote), one of the first companies to show deaf people in
its commercials, contends that the ads have brought more people with a
variety of disabilities into its restaurants. Similarly, Microsoft
(news/quote) says it has sold more copies of Windows 98 by showing its
accessibility features in television ads.

Citing census data, Mrs. Jones and the Dukes and argue that people with
disabilities constitute a huge market of some 50 million Americans. But that
figure comes from an especially broad definition of disability. A more
realistic estimate may be just under 10 million, which is the number of
people over 15 that the Census Bureau says are disabled enough that they
need help with activities of daily living.

Moreover, even with the decade- old Americans With Disabilities Act, the
unemployment rate for working-age people with disabilities remains
chronically high and their incomes below average.

Nonetheless, the Solutions Marketing Group and W. C. Duke both say they are
having little trouble attracting business from Fortune 500 companies. Their
clients seem willing to pay consultants to draw up marketing strategies that
may yield, at least in the short run, only a small financial return.

But there is a longer-run strategy at work. The incidence of disability cuts
across all socioeconomic groups, and many people with disabilities are
supported by their families and have sizable disposable incomes.
Furthermore, with the aging of the population, more people who have had
successful careers are acquiring disabilities later in life, when they have
accumulated enough wealth to become heavy users of products and services
designed for people with disabilities.

Mrs. Duke acknowledges that her consulting services are often sought out by
companies that are under the threat of lawsuit for not complying with the
disability law. But that threat only acts as a catalyst for many of her
clients, she says. Many, convinced that being more inclusive is "doing the
right thing," eventually go far beyond the legal requirements in adapting
their services for use by people with disabilities.

While it has been accused of allowing harassment against a disabled employee
to take place, Darden Restaurants (news/quote) provides menus in Braille at
its Olive Garden and Red Lobster outlets. "We want to be able to serve any
customer that comes in to our restaurants," said Linda Gonzalez, the
company's manager of diversity and community affairs.

Others have embraced the "universal design" movement, which tries to make
products usable by as many people as possible. Many features originally
designed for users with disabilities end up helping nondisabled users, too.

Talking caller-ID units were initially designed for the blind but they can
help anyone who is away from a telephone display. Similarly, closed
captioning was designed for deaf television viewers. It can also be used by
others when the sound of the television is an annoyance or where it would be
drowned out by surrounding noises.

Mrs. Duke says that the family business was driven at first more by a sense
of mission than any confidence that they would eventually make money. "Our
relatives thought that we were crazy to do this," she said.

The Dukes, former public-school teachers, cashed out part of their pensions
to start their venture, which began with a Virginia travel guide for people
with disabilities. Today, the business, started in 1988, generates enough
revenue for the Dukes to be selective in acquiring clients.

And their Opening Doors program, Mrs. Duke said, has now established itself
as a known brand among consumers with disabilities, who seek out companies
that have put their staff through the training.




----- Original Message -----
From: "Lauren Hanka" <bluejay(at)starband.net>
To: <aware-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 3:02 PM
Subject: re: Hello?


> I'm here John, and have been watching with hesitated interest. Please, be
> don't be disgusted, but I find accessibility issues annoying. Tell me why
> one must study, on top of all the other studies that are required to keep
up
> with this ever-changing, and highly competitive field, to make a site
> accessible for the visually impaired, when if this is desired, all that's
> really needed, as far as I understand, is make a "text only" duplicate of
an
> existing site? Am I wrong? Short-sighted? After all, the Web, *is* a
> visually based medium, as is television. Of course, I am in agreement that
> easily accessible *information* be available for the visually impaired on
> the net, just annoyed that a separate and specialized technique must be
> learned and employed to make a basically visual site easier to see for the
> visually impaired --it just doesn't make sense in the efficiency
department.
>
> On the other hand --since North American governments are establishing
> compliancy requirements, and since there are so few designers with
knowledge
> in this area, I'm game to learn...
>
> Just my quick, unguarded, and conflicting personal thoughts...
> Lauren
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Foliot - Another 4:00 AM Web Thing" <foliot(at)fouram.com>
> To: <aware-techniques(at)hwg.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 10:31 AM
> Subject: Hello?
>
>
> > This appears to be the sleepiest list I've ever subscribed to.  What's
the
> > problem? Are there really no issues, or does nobody but a very small
group
> > of us actually care?
> >
> > - Yesterday I received an eMail from the good folk at M*crom*dia (names
> > changed to protect the innocent) who have put on a travelling road show
to
> > demonstrate the accessibility features in a number of their applications
> > (both graphic and code tools).  Has anyone been to any of these demos in
> > their home town?  Is it worth investing half a day of dog and pony show?
> > Inquiring minds want to know...
> >
> > - As a Canadian web developer located in Ottawa, Ontario, list members
> might
> > be interested in the following fact:  The Canadian Federal Government
has
> > mandated all federal web sites be compliant to the Level 1 and Level 2
WAI
> > Guidelines, similar to the Section 508 statute in the US, but, to my
> > understanding, stricter.  Can anybody confirm or deny this fact?
> >
> > - There is a dire need for developers who are both aware and able to
code
> to
> > these standards... hint<wink>.  The Canadian government has provided a
> > testing group to assist governmental employees who actually work on
> federal
> > sites (http://www.cio-dpi.gc.ca/clf-upe/1/wats/wats_e.asp) to help them
> > identify and correct potential problems.  Attendees consistently ask if
> > there are any "real time" support mechanisms out there.  I would love to
> > recommend this list, but the last posting was dated October 8th, 2001.
> >
> > So, show of hands... is there anybody out there?
> >
> > JF
> > Ottawa, Ont.
>
>
>

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