Accessibility: Let’s put away the wrecking ball!

Levelling the playing field is a good thing

If you are reading this post you will probably think that accessibility is critically important.

You will know & understand the rationale behind it.

You will most likely either be in the accessibility “industry” or a user of Assistive Technology.

It is likely that you will be frustrated by the constant challenges that you face in accessing products and services or working with people to make their products and services accessible.

I know that in my job I face these challenges too on a daily basis.

Often it can feel that it is one step forwards and two steps back.  Just when you think that you have something that works, technology changes, legislation changes or management decide on a new direction and the baby gets thrown away with the bath water.

I work in a huge IT organisation and one of our major clients actually has adherence to their accessibility guidelines built into our contract so that any product or service we deliver to them must be accessible, not just websites anything that has a user interface.

So not only do I have the law on my side in my role I have the power to enforce compliance and if necessary stop multi million pound projects in their tracks if they cannot be used in conjunction with Assistive Technology.  I can almost hear some of you thinking he’s got it easy…

But despite making progress and working hard there is still much that concerns me about accessibility, both in my organisation and in the wider world.

So why does it still not work?

It is undoubtedly frustrating but I believe we need to take a step back and see how outsiders view accessibility.

I honestly believe that this picture represents how a lot of people in the IT industry view a meeting with the “accessibility guy”.  I’m not joking when I say project directors have run away from me with a fearful guilty glance over their shoulder.

In some cases they know that they’ve swept accessibility under the carpet or ignored it all together and that their project has a deadline they need to meet.  A meeting with the accessibility guy at this stage will delay their project upset the client (yes the same client that says they want everything accessible) and cost money.

Others are ignorant of their obligations so our first meeting can come as a nasty shock as the implications sink in for what implementing accessibility means for their project or service this late in the game.

Lets not turn accessibility discussions into a jousting match

Karl Groves of Deque Systems posted on the need for a new approach to accessibility a subject first raised by Jared W Smith who talked of the need for a new accessibility game plan.  You can read Karl’s post on his blog.

I agree with most of what he said about how the accessibility community is viewed by web developers as whining zealots stopping them from implementing cool new ideas.

Accessibility has become a bit of a dirty word.

We are partly to blame.

We have felt the need to fight our corner and have fought tenaciously.

The problem is sometimes we shoot indiscriminately and do more harm than good.

We also frequently fight amongst ourselves.

We have developed a plethora of standards.

Whilst they are necessary there are possibly too many, they often conflict and sometimes they confuse the hell out of me let alone a lay person.

I have been working with and using Assistive Technology for over a decade and I know enough to know that there is always more to learn.  We need to have some sympathy for those who are willing to work with us and to provide them with practical ways and suggestions to work with these guidelines and just as importantly choose the appropriate ones.

Furthermore standards tend to lag behind technology developments so we spend far too much time in conferences arguing about the fine details whilst the world moves on.

We have launched class action lawsuits against major corporations and won.

Let me be clear that there is a place for legal action, it is sometime necessary as a weapon of last resort.

But class action lawsuits not only breed resentment they can also skew the view of what constitutes accessibility.  Large, well funded organisations such as the NFB can afford the lawyers more readily than other disability groups and this can lead to misconceptions, such as thinking that just because it works for one group or with one piece of Assistive Technology it is accessible.  Different people have different needs and they can and frequently do conflict.

We have bullied and cajoled people into accepting that people with disabilities should have access one website at a time.

But we can’t keep up with the volume of stuff that’s out there.

We cannot fix it all ourselves.

We need to find another way to achieve our goals

We need to stop fighting and start talking.

And not just amongst ourselves.

Stop telling people they are failing and talk to them about how we can work together to make better products for everyone.

Words like compliance, fail, class action, discrimination and legislation are turn-offs.

Talk in the language of business to the ones that own the big businesses

Go to the top and show the key people how they can make great products accessible and PROFITABLE.

Demonstrate that the costs of doing this need not be excessive and can pay dividends in terms of usability, productivity, customer loyalty.

Present them with evidence that they can engage and delight their customers by working with us.

Show them that they are missing out on an opportunity to engage with a large and growing customer base.

Give them facts and figures on the spending power and demographic trends around disability and ageing.

This may not be easy but the pay off of engaging with top executives can be far greater as they can change the culture of their organisations.

Engage with thought leaders

As well as people from business we need to be engaging the people who are shaping our future, go outside of our cosy circle and get them interested in a two way conversation. The people who are building the next generation of technologies may not be aware of what they need to do to make their products accessible. We won’t know who they are but by engaging with thought leaders and getting their buy in we have a much better chance of influencing them.

We can also learn about what trends will be important and work with them to ensure inclusion.

Most people develop new technology with the intent of making our lives easier and better  so we should present the arguments that accessibility and Assistive Technology is just a natural extension of this.

We should not be afraid to appropriate new technologies to our needs.

Twitter is a great place for this kind of discussion.  It is a great back door to big corporations and busy people.

Accentuate the positive

We must demonstrate that accessible products can be great and fun products that everyone wants to use.

We need to be less “worthy” and more fun – make our products attractive to a wider audience, changing Accessible Twitter to “Easy Chirp” is one example of making an accessible product more attractive to a broad audience.

Before pointing out the bits that aren’t accessible on a website or in a product home in on the bits that are.

Be prepared to compromise.

We are in this for the long haul and need to build relationships so being prepared to compromise on small issues is necessary.  If something is 80% accessible that is a great start so long as the remaining 20% doesn’t represent the core function of the product or website.

Sometimes we behave like accessibility is a religion, if that is the case I think we need to careful not to behave like the Spanish Inquisition.

Work to educate.

As Karl Groves mentioned people don’t often set out to deliberately make their products inaccessible it usually comes about through ignorance.

I am not a coder but I will and do provide code examples to those that do – my thanks as always go to those who generously provide this people like Yahoo Access and Dennis Lembree.

I also make sure that I bend over backwards to provide training and awareness sessions to all that ask for it.

We could do with making people more aware that they don’t have to comb through their code line by line, so lets give people the tools they need to build accessible products and websites, a lot of them are out there already.

Show them Assistive Technology – blow them away with how great it is. Most people I demonstrate to are amazed when they see products like JAWS and Dragon for the first time.  Demonstrate how some of it could make their lives easier too. Get them using it and you’ll have a convert to the cause. Even better they’ll have the awareness and the tools to implement accessibility themselves in future.

We also need to harmonise and cross reference standards as well as make them decipherable  – My colleague Klaus-Peter Wegge talked with me about creating a “cook book” with easy to follow recipes and tips.

Noticeably despite having input to many of the world standards on accessibility he tends not to use the word often preferring the terms Universal Design and Design for All.

Let’s embrace the wider world:

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