

RE: conference

From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 12:39:06 -0700
Message-Id: <>
To: Dave J Woolley <DJW@bts.co.uk>
At 12:13 PM 9/6/2000 , Dave  J Woolley wrote:
>         [DJW:]  
>         However, the audience for this sort of thing, when
>         it appears in books, is generally people who
>         want cook book solutions to improving their ability
>         to impress people with spending power, rather than
>         their ability to convey information to everyone that
>         might want that information.  Generally such people
>         either have no concept of an accessibility issue, or
>         believe that adding accessibility will cost them
>         money, and probably compromise the effect of the site,
>         without gaining them money

In other words, they're the target audience for WAI and other
web accessibility education efforts. :)

By labeling their -pet tech toys- as inaccessible, rather
than the -mindset-, we risk major confusion regarding what
we're trying to convey.  In truth, "HTML Tricks", Flash, or
DHTML is _not_ the threat; the threat is webmasters who don't
understand how to use them properly.

If we make sweeping statements that "DHTML is bad" or "Flash
is useless and hinders accessibility", then we are _forcing_
web designers to think they have to make a choice between
"being accessible" or "not compromising my site".  And
that's exactly why people think "well, either I can use
Flash, and reach my primary target audience with an optimized
user experience for them, or I can be 'accessible' and 
be unable to use Flash."

A more correct vision of the web is that it's ENTIRELY
POSSIBLE to use any of those technologies, as long as you
make sure the -content- is available in some other way.
By this approach, there really are no "inaccessible
technologies", because we are talking about _content_ not
about the forms that content is expressed in.

Director of Accessibility, Edapta                  http://www.edapta.com/
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet      http://www.idyllmtn.com/
AWARE Center Director                         http://www.awarecenter.org/
Received on Wednesday, 6 September 2000 15:51:47 UTC

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