RE: What is missing in accessible design?

Folks

> Nearly all accessibly-designed web sites lack a conceptual design
> focus. So do most other web sites but this condition is more
> pervasive in the accessible design community. Authors of those sites
> have learned how to place images and format text and organize
> information, which means accessible sites are often quite usable but,
> in terms of visual design, only "OK" at best and often "blah," as
> Kukla et al observed.

	Functionality is an aspect that I'm sure everyone deals with at one time or
another with regard to whatever field they work in.  There is a learning
process with regard to balancing functionality and visual design that I'm
sure many struggle with.  I know I do.  Admittedly, my sites would most
likely be termed boring or blah and I'll never make the pages of
www.coolhomepages.com. :) To be perfectly honest, I'm not as concerned about
that as I am about offering my clients the ability to put their business
information on the internet in an affordable and hopefully well-presented
way.  I'm not the artist in the family :), I'm the organizer.  That doesn't
mean that I don't have the ability to discern colour and balance nor apply
some design principles to what I'm working on.  Consequently I do not browse
the web with the intent on only being stimulated by visual aspects but
rather look for a combination of ideas, visual presentation and information
that appeal.

	While I recognize that visual presentation is exceptionally important to
some, I wonder if we are respecting the general population or for that
matter, the majority.  I've been to a number of very interesting sites that
have the "wow" factor, however, the sites that I frequent are the ones that
appeal to me because of content rather than visual presentation.  Having
said that, I'm very aware of the fact that I do not stay at sites that I
find difficult to read regardless of the information it contains.

	Perhaps we all view the web from our own special perspectives.  I guess
what I am most concerned with is why would we exclude people who genuinely
want to go to that website but are unable to access it because of the
barriers.  As with everything with the web, it's an evolving process.  If we
embrace the principles behind accessibility, we will not only include people
who have disabilities but we will also be part of a developing process that
will, in time, evolve in much the same way that the web has.

	The challenge then, is to design a website that has "conceptual design" as
well as accessibility (?)  Why should that be out of the reach of the
web-design community?  Years ago I started with a small monitor (hmmm,
greyscale, I think ;) ) and accessed the internet when everything was
text-based and ASCII art was de rigeur (grin). That never stopped my
interest nor my desire to continue with this medium.  The development of the
web was the icing on the cake.

	So, if we broaden our perspectives and acknowledge the fact that the web is
not an exclusive medium, will we not expand the horizons of others as well
as ourselves?

	Perhaps for many the issue is not so much the aspect of including
accessibility but rather the fact that there are laws and guidelines.  The
internet community as a whole has usually rejected controls of this nature.
Unfortunately, when it comes to people with disabilities, it has become a
*necessary fact of life* that barriers are generally only removed when laws
are set up to do so.  I recognize that for many their exposure to people
with disabilities may be somewhat limited.  Consquently, there is a
perception that they are a "minority" population and therefore there isn't a
"need" to address the issues that this segment of the population deal with
on a day-to-day basis.  I look at it from not only my personal perspective
but also from my experiences so I'll continue to expound on the issues that
exclude many, many people.  If looked at from the commercial point of view,
people with disabilities are part of the buying public also  :)

	Ok, that's enough of my pontificating for now :) - for those who haven't
read it here's: http://aware.hwg.org/why/myths.html#m2

Shelley

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