e-stores should be W3C Compliant

[JohnsonandJohnson]

We are currently going through a development consultation with reference to an accessible app.

Our global target market is 650 million people who have an array of accessibility challenges:

We aim to capture 1.5% of the global market = 9,750,000 people.

Now if our figures ring true, how many e-commerce sites which deliver every day products would our target audience be able to purchase from?

If anyone can share some statistics this would be very much appreciated.

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

It would seem to the users of this forum that an accessible business or e-commerce site isn't of paramount importance. Especially when it is now law to be so!!!

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

If you feel that it isn't good practice to ensure that your software systems comply with UK and International legislation; then you could be one of those businesses who would prefer to loose business to a more accessible business therefore impacting on your sustainability and profitability.

Business Ministers make it apparent that is is good economic sense to be accessible. And that accessible businesses will be more successful than those who are not!

What would be the impact of your business being accessible to just 1.5% of the global market who experience accessibility obstacles in accessing your goods and services....worth investigating isn't it?

 

Business Ministers make it apparent that is is good economic sense to be accessible. And that accessible businesses will be more successful than those who are not!

Do you know any other good jokes.?:|

accessibility is very low on what makes a successful business.

so whats your axe.?

Earl

 

[Dawg]

Business Ministers make it apparent that is is good economic sense to be accessible. And that accessible businesses will be more successful than those who are not!

Yay! Lets hear it for Business Ministers! Know whats what, they do.

You might find that people who run ecomm sites:

• Are more interested in conversions, which slavish adherence to WC3 doesn't necessarily improve,
• Don't want to be hectored about the frigging rules by self styled consultants,
• Can't be arsed to answer your first question on the grounds that if you are such a heavy player you can do your own homework.

BTW: where is your site so we can see the glory of full compliance....?

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

Do you know any other good jokes.?:|

accessibility is very low on what makes a successful business.

so whats your axe.?

Earl

No axe to grind...just making a viable business point

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

Yay! Lets hear it for Business Ministers! Know whats what, they do.

You might find that people who run ecomm sites:

• Are more interested in conversions, which slavish adherence to WC3 doesn't necessarily improve,
• Don't want to be hectored about the frigging rules by self styled consultants,
• Can't be arsed to answer your first question on the grounds that if you are such a heavy player you can do your own homework.

BTW: where is your site so we can see the glory of full compliance....?

If people who run e-commerce sites are more interested in conversions then if they have a large audience then the conversion ratio could increase having a larger market - god that was easy; increasing your market potential - er makes economic and business sense.

Nothing about being self styled, more about opening new markets - if you knew the real facts your responses wouldn't be discriminative.

12 years of industry knowledge gives me enough data, but just wanted to obtain this forums acknowledgement on the original question.

 

[TotallySport]

No axe to grind...just making a viable business point

I don't think ppl agree, spending alot of time and money on accessablility and complicance won't automatically create traffic and converstions.

And since people needing accessability on a web site is very minamal, IMO you need to work out your target market and if you fall into a market that does genuinly get a return from being accessable then its a good idea to build the system to the correct needs.

And if your a small UK business then your target market isn't your estaimated 9,750,000 people, i would say its in the hundreds of thousands, then if you then break it down further into sectors, ages, etc it might only be in the thousands, compared to the still millions on none accessability users.

 

[edmondscommerce]

hey its the stay up late and argue club

 

[TotallySport]

hey its the stay up late and argue club

lol, I am not arguing I am disagreeing

 

[bluedreamer]

And since people needing accessability on a web site is very minamal, IMO you need to work out your target market and if you fall into a market that does genuinly get a return from being accessable then its a good idea to build the system to the correct needs.

And if your a small UK business then your target market isn't your estaimated 9,750,000 people, i would say its in the hundreds of thousands, then if you then break it down further into sectors, ages, etc it might only be in the thousands, compared to the still millions on none accessability users.

I wouldn't say accessibility is a minimal thing at all. Take colour blindness for example, with an estimated 10% of the global population having some sort of colour blindness can a business owner afford to ignore 1 million of 10 million potential customers?

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

I don't think ppl agree, spending alot of time and money on accessablility and complicance won't automatically create traffic and converstions.

And since people needing accessability on a web site is very minamal, IMO you need to work out your target market and if you fall into a market that does genuinly get a return from being accessable then its a good idea to build the system to the correct needs.

And if your a small UK business then your target market isn't your estaimated 9,750,000 people, i would say its in the hundreds of thousands, then if you then break it down further into sectors, ages, etc it might only be in the thousands, compared to the still millions on none accessability users.

So your saying if you (as a small UK business) wouldn't benefit even from a share of the aforementioned market. Your business wouldn't prosper?

If you feel right in discriminating against potential customers, then that's your business judgement...as I stated before - a more accessible business will benefit from your poor practice...work it out; and try to be more open minded.

Even with the development of the Olympic Stadium, the tenders which will be more favourable are the businesses that can demonstrate accessibility - would you forsake business due to your closed mind?

If so - you shouldn't be in business.

 

[Jeff Knows]

A fully W3C compliant website is a boring website. Especially true on the large scale.

The accessibility = sales thing is complete PC tosh. I'm not a guy for 'target markets' and conversion rates etc, I think it simply detracts from the main issue, that your site is crap.

However. Of you target market, what percentage of them would require accessibility? Now what percentage won't buy from you because you have a completely uninteresting website?

If the developers spend all their time going after standards compliance and accessibility rather than building in features the majority of the userbase desire then it won't matter how much you comply with the law to increase conversions, you'll get neither userbase.

How accessible do you think Amazon is? It's not, in the slightest. You know what they do for people with screen readers and such devices? They stick 'em on the mobile site. Or for the visually impaired they push you to a site that tries to sell you braille books and voice recog. software. None of the font is bigger, none of the images are larger, nothing has changed, they just now know what trash they can sell you. I'm Not Kidding, Take a look

It may be discriminatory but unless you are in the business of selling glasses, screen readers, hearing aids etc etc etc then it simply won't do you any good but win you brownie points with people who make it their business to make up awards for those who pander.

It's not just Amazon, pick any big online retailer you like. None of them give it a second look. The effort wasted going after such a small market is better and more efficiently spent going after other areas. Until there is some kind of proper monetary incentive (like a fine) it will always be that way.

It's the same for W3C standards. So long as it works for the majority of browsers in the same fashion, why bother caring about W3C? Some browsers don't even comply to WC3. Build for the customer, not the regulations.

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

A fully W3C compliant website is a boring website. Especially true on the large scale.

The accessibility = sales thing is complete PC tosh. I'm not a guy for 'target markets' and conversion rates etc, I think it simply detracts from the main issue, that your site is crap.

However. Of you target market, what percentage of them would require accessibility? Now what percentage won't buy from you because you have a completely uninteresting website?

If the developers spend all their time going after standards compliance and accessibility rather than building in features the majority of the userbase desire then it won't matter how much you comply with the law to increase conversions, you'll get neither userbase.

How accessible do you think Amazon is? It's not, in the slightest. You know what they do for people with screen readers and such devices? They stick 'em on the mobile site. Or for the visually impaired they push you to a site that tries to sell you braille books and voice recog. software. None of the font is bigger, none of the images are larger, nothing has changed, they just now know what trash they can sell you. I'm Not Kidding, Take a look

It may be discriminatory but unless you are in the business of selling glasses, screen readers, hearing aids etc etc etc then it simply won't do you any good but win you brownie points with people who make it their business to make up awards for those who pander.

It's not just Amazon, pick any big online retailer you like. None of them give it a second look. The effort wasted going after such a small market is better and more efficiently spent going after other areas. Until there is some kind of proper monetary incentive (like a fine) it will always be that way.

It's the same for W3C standards. So long as it works for the majority of browsers in the same fashion, why bother caring about W3C? Some browsers don't even comply to WC3. Build for the customer, not the regulations.

Let's look at what you said, Build for the customer - considering a segment of the UK population is worth £80 billion towards the UK economy, you wouldn't want to have the ability to increase that spending power or have a share of it?

 

[Jeff Knows]

Let's look at what you said, Build for the customer - considering a segment of the UK population is worth £80 billion towards the UK economy, you wouldn't want to have the ability to increase that spending power or have a share of it?

You are creating a false dichotomy to enforce your point here. It's not one or the other. A well built website that works across platforms will also work with any competent accessibility software or hardware. Most of it is done clientside and tailored to their specific needs and is built with the understanding that the web is a dynamic place.

To focus on accessibility you would have to take resources from somewhere else and almost 100% of the time that 'somewhere else' is dealing with a much larger market.

Put it this way. I have x amount of resources to add one feature to my website. Do I add a ratings/review section or do I fully comply with text-to-speech systems? One benefits the entire userbase, the other benefits a small portion of it.

The various utilities used are quite clever and any half decent website is understood and useable by these utilities. Any website they can't get through is a website that's crap for everyone, not just them.

 

[bluedreamer]

Jeff you've missed the point on what accessibilty is

Accessibility is for everyone, not just people with disabilities. A typical example is Amazon, it's navigable via keyboard, they provide clear, relevent and useful information for customers, and have gone to great lengths to make purchasing as easy as possible. Sure their pages don't validate to W3C standards, and the HTML structure could be a lot better but "standards" and accessibility are two different things.

The Amazon accessibility resources you mentioned are simply additional options for those people who want to use them. Non-one is forced to use them, not even screen reader users!

Font sizing - people with eyesight problems don't always want bigger text, that's a myth, some eyesight ailments mean some people prefer smaller text. What is important is to build a site that can adapt to the users choice of font size using their web browser settings.

And W3C compliant sites don't have to be "boring" at all

 

[Jeff Knows]

Jeff you've missed the point on what accessibilty is

Accessibility is for everyone, not just people with disabilities. A typical example is Amazon, it's navigable via keyboard, they provide clear, relevent and useful information for customers, and have gone to great lengths to make purchasing as easy as possible. Sure their pages don't validate to W3C standards, and the HTML structure could be a lot better but "standards" and accessibility are two different things.

The Amazon accessibility resources you mentioned are simply additional options for those people who want to use them. Non-one is forced to use them, not even screen reader users!

Font sizing - people with eyesight problems don't always want bigger text, that's a myth, some eyesight ailments mean some people prefer smaller text. What is important is to build a site that can adapt to the users choice of font size using their web browser settings.

And W3C compliant sites don't have to be "boring" at all

I'm not sure I have and I'm not sure you are disagreeing with me like you seem to think you are.

I was under the impression we are discussing accessibility in regards to disabilities, that's why the law was mentioned was it not?

My point is simple. Any resource spent focusing on accessibility most of the time is largely wasted. Decent accessibility will come as an added bonus of building a decent working website.

Again, Build for your customers. Most of whom don't need accessibility features and those that do have their own very capable tools that don't need any specialization from you to work properly.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

"If you feel that it isn't good practice to ensure that your software systems comply with UK and International legislation"

What compliance legislaion do you refer to?

 

[E Storey]

IDK.... I am very doubtful that a blind person would be seriously hindered from reading my website purely because the template provider hasn't listed which font he has used correctly.....

If they were they could always ring/e-mail and I would make a reasonable adjustment in explaining it to them.

Living with a disabled family member and having just witnesses a couple insist a career with a disabled adult laid across her lap stand up so they could move seats, is the kind of real hindrance disabled people endure every day. It really makes me think that people who compile W3C don't have a clue what is really important.

And the legislation does not say you have to be W3C compliant, it says you should be accessible, the 2 are not the same.

 

[TotallySport]

I wouldn't say accessibility is a minimal thing at all. Take colour blindness for example, with an estimated 10% of the global population having some sort of colour blindness can a business owner afford to ignore 1 million of 10 million potential customers?

Are you colour blind?

 

[E Storey]

well you wouldn't ask a real shop to change all it's labels on clothes if you were colour blind would you?

 

[TotallySport]

So your saying if you (as a small UK business) wouldn't benefit even from a share of the aforementioned market. Your business wouldn't prosper?

If you feel right in discriminating against potential customers, then that's your business judgement...as I stated before - a more accessible business will benefit from your poor practice...work it out; and try to be more open minded.

Even with the development of the Olympic Stadium, the tenders which will be more favourable are the businesses that can demonstrate accessibility - would you forsake business due to your closed mind?

If so - you shouldn't be in business.

What I am saying is you focus on what makes money, not what doesn't, and if your target market demands you take accessability very seriously you do, but if your target market doesn't then you focus on getting a return on your investment.

Ontop of which browser also have many of the functions which accessabiliy uses need and I don't think I the people using the features need it twice, once build into my web site which they have to find, or functions in a browser which will always be in the same place.

If i go after the minority of my customer base, I will go out of business very fast.

Out of interest have you actually done any tests with people in the sector of people in the acessability group, or just copied and pasted a load of one sided rubbish.

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

What I am saying is you focus on what makes money, not what doesn't, and if your target market demands you take accessability very seriously you do, but if your target market doesn't then you focus on getting a return on your investment.

Ontop of which browser also have many of the functions which accessabiliy uses need and I don't think I the people using the features need it twice, once build into my web site which they have to find, or functions in a browser which will always be in the same place.

If i go after the minority of my customer base, I will go out of business very fast.

Out of interest have you actually done any tests with people in the sector of people in the acessability group, or just copied and pasted a load of one sided rubbish.

No you have to think about your existing customer base, no doubt as time goes on their health will change; as we know in general our eyesight deteriorates over time, thus people requiring the need for glasses.

Its essential to keep records on your customers; looking at a worse case scenario - what if 6% of your best spending customers lost their vision; would you just forsake them - or would you value your long standing customers and make reasonable adjustments to accommodate their access challenges?

And in response to your question, yes I have delivered testing in access focus groups and the results demonstrated that 32% of disabled people still can not obtain mainstream products and services on-line.

We have observed the physical environment change, to allow access - it should be no different for the electronic environment.

There is also an initiative running at present "Fix the Web" an organisation which specifically tests websites for their accessibility; this initiative is to run for over 2 years.

It aims to identify what percentage of businesses still remain inaccessible; from what I read, there will also be a "name and shame" initiative tied to the process. In my opinion that is not the correct way to change opinions and values.

I always feel education is the key. But I am in favour of a law to be enforced, especially for those organisations who neglect or discriminate.

Reading the comments in this thread have been very enlightening, its a good debate.

 

[cmcp]

Johnson, I admire your enthusiasm but sometimes you need to pick your battles.

Small - medium business are in their own world, concerned with getting by and maximising profits. They don't have a clue what accessibility is, so why not spend your time educating them?

Accessibility is a right, not a privilege. If said business did have a clue, they'd know it takes no more time or effort to implement an accessible solution over one which isn't. It costs nothing. Go to a professional and nothing will suffer; dev time, conversions, whatever you're concerned about.

 

[gibby]

we did spend sometime making our site suitable for blind people, to a degree.
most of those customers tell us they have special pc's so that they can navigate most websites, so its not an issue.

What is strange is that we get quite a few requests every week to produce a catalogue. These potential customer tell us they dont' have a pc & housebound & usually with sight issues.

Im not sure how they could see a catalogue but for eco & price issues its something we don't intend to do.

G

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

Johnson, I admire your enthusiasm but sometimes you need to pick your battles.

Small - medium business are in their own world, concerned with getting by and maximising profits. They don't have a clue what accessibility is, so why not spend your time educating them?

Accessibility is a right, not a privilege. If said business did have a clue, they'd know it takes no more time or effort to implement an accessible solution over one which isn't. It costs nothing. Go to a professional and nothing will suffer; dev time, conversions, whatever you're concerned about.

cmcp...it would be interesting to develop a questionnaire just to observe the weaknesses and strengths of SME knowledge in accessibility, not just from an electronic focus but from a physical one too.

I think from a survey we could actually design a rewarding learning programme.

Which will provide a ROI

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

we did spend sometime making our site suitable for blind people, to a degree.
most of those customers tell us they have special pc's so that they can navigate most websites, so its not an issue.

What is strange is that we get quite a few requests every week to produce a catalogue. These potential customer tell us they dont' have a pc & housebound & usually with sight issues.

Im not sure how they could see a catalogue but for eco & price issues its something we don't intend to do.

G

Interesting comment, Accessibility vs Eco; wouldn't you recoup your costs by giving your potential customers what they want? I'm almost certain that you could find a printers who are Eco friendly, therefore reducing your carbon footprint; how are you measuring your carbon footprint by the way?

Large print will be an asset to your customers with visual impairments; but I in a sense agree with you - you have to examine the feasibility of cost and return.

 

[TotallySport]

Interesting comment, Accessibility vs Eco; wouldn't you recoup your costs by giving your potential customers what they want? I'm almost certain that you could find a printers who are Eco friendly, therefore reducing your carbon footprint; how are you measuring your carbon footprint by the way?

Large print will be an asset to your customers with visual impairments; but I in a sense agree with you - you have to examine the feasibility of cost and return.

Can you give us an example of a business you have taken from and unaccessable position, what advice you gave them, and how much trade was increased with the changes?

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

Can you give us an example of a business you have taken from and unaccessable position, what advice you gave them, and how much trade was increased with the changes?

The London Borough of Newham, was in need of content that enabled them to cater for people who were disabled by society; an e-learning programme was designed to enable them to deliver best practice towards their consumers who had challenges in accessibility.

Further consultations involved the late David Morris who was involved with the accessibility issues for the city of London; Nick Gontar the chairman of the Access Committee for the development of access initiatives for the development of the Olympic Stadium was also involved with the consultations that we delivered at City Hall in London.

With the introduction with public venues across the UK we are providing accessible solutions with corporate brands such as; Manchester United, Manchester City and other recognised Premiership Football Clubs...including other stadia like the Emirates of Arsenal F.C as well as Championship and SPL.

Being the former Chairman for GLIDE (Greater London for Disabled Entrepreneurs) I have delivered initiatives amongst cooperate organisations who have identified the necessity of becoming accessible towards all they serve.

I hope that responds to your question?

 

[TotallySport]

Thanks for the information, but your post is in the ecommerce section of the forum, and with my mention to trade I was expecting some ecommerce sites.

Also the people you talking about have purse strings which are very deep, can you relate more to SME?

But I was more looking for the increased benefit after any new implementation of new accessability features, so looking for increase visitors, hits, time on the site increased?

But even all the information based sites, what increases did they have after the consultancy and implemtations?

I would also like to know, how many people that you delt with through Glide needed accessabilty setup on a web site, and which parts or the accessability are the most important as an average of the people you came in contact with?

 

[cmcp]

I gave a heads up to SME earlier to acknowledge their reasons for being blind when it comes to accessibility, but be careful not to go down the route of "who needs it? how many?"

There's a fine line between naivety and discrimination. The business case you might get away with, but social responsibility is a hotter potato.

 

[TotallySport]

I gave a heads up to SME earlier to acknowledge their reasons for being blind when it comes to accessibility, but be careful not to go down the route of "who needs it? how many?"

There's a fine line between naivety and discrimination. The business case you might get away with, but social responsibility is a hotter potato.

Actually i agree with your earlier point that it should be built into any new design, however if you pay £100 for a web site I very much doubt the design will put it in, its simply not cost effective for them, but saying that I bet within the first 6 months no one would have needed it either, unless their target market was going towards those clients.

TBH i don't have a problem with accessability, and in general think its a good thing, I just didn't agree with the way the OP tried ramming it down everyones throat, that increasing the accessability in a web site will increase their customer basis, when in many cases IMO it simply won't, certainly not in a way that just by adding accessability and W3C compliance would simple increase a customer base by 10 million or that they are loosing business becuase they are not fully accessable.

IMO the OP is doing a hard sell more than informing.

However I am interested in the subject hense my questions about Glide.

 

[movietub]

W3C compliance is all well and good, if you have a fairly basic site. But a modern eccomerce site packed with complex features and this becomes much harder. Designers want to use CSS3 instructions such as opacity for example. Or corner-radius:, which make a lot of sense! Is it better to use 3 background images to create a semi opaque rounded box just because it's compliant? Many would thank designers for sticking two fingers up to compliance and surging ahead. The standards will just have to catch up.

All in all, people that sell online, are here to present a site which looks cutting edge, looks good across all browsers and has the functionality users seek. This is normally achievable in a compliant fashion, but takes a lot of work and careful consideration. However in a years time, what if new features are to be added? Maintaining compliance whilst modifying a site can involve as much work as effectively starting from scratch. The development time/cost probably isn't worth the benefits.

Then you have a few thousand product descriptions being edited by several people. Not to mention, the back end powering the site may not always be compliant itself...

It all sounds like excuses I know. And thats fair enough. The problem is, we are here to sell. And our time/money can always be invested better in marketing/increasing stock/new products/descriptions/SEO/content than trying to maintain complaince each step of the way.

Especially when compliance has started to hold back the web (along with IE) whilst we are all waiting for html5 and CSS3 to be sorted properly.

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

Thanks for the information, but your post is in the ecommerce section of the forum, and with my mention to trade I was expecting some ecommerce sites.

Also the people you talking about have purse strings which are very deep, can you relate more to SME? I'm going to be very honest here, and I feel you will appreciate and respect me more for being so. I have no case study reflecting on an SME. As the chairman of Glide, we specifically dealt with Disabled Entrepreneurs, therefore they already understood the challenges with the realms of access, both physical and electronically. Therefore from their Business Planning they delivered accessibility initiatives that enabled their business to be inclusive towards everyone they served.

Through my personal experience I feel that the SME sector has to be educated in a language that is more compelling. I understand that the DDA / Equality Act hasn't been monitored or enforced, therefore we as humans, tend to be lackadaisical.

I have also noted from the comments posted in this debate, the SME sector tend to feel that words like compliance or adhere to isn't the correct language to use in delivering the benefits of being an inclusive business.

At this stage I will not start a lecture, but I am open to discuss this further if you are interested?

But I was more looking for the increased benefit after any new implementation of new accessability features, so looking for increase visitors, hits, time on the site increased? Let me respond to this question with another question, if your website enabled your visitors, to change the contrast, size of text, enable a hand-held version of your content, for example some people can concentrate on short sentences, rather than long sentences. This will actually enable people with visual and concentration accessibility challenges to access your website, therefore increasing your visitors. If these features are available on your website, instead of passing the buck to the browser then your business will increase its opportunity of tapping into a market that spends £80 billion a year...this figure has grown since recorded. It is basic common sense really, if you make your business more accessible - you will become more profitable.

But even all the information based sites, what increases did they have after the consultancy and implemtations? Being accessible, breeds acknowledgement, the more accessible you are - then disabled consumers will inform their friends and family - so this should give you an indicator of what happens, especially if you promote your inclusiveness.

I would also like to know, how many people that you delt with through Glide needed accessabilty setup on a web site, and which parts or the accessability are the most important as an average of the people you came in contact with?

I have dealt with a diverse community of people, with various needs. Visual impairment, Learning Disabilities, Hearing Impairment; Colour Blindness, to name a few.

In this modern age we tend to find that there are a significant number of businesses that are just web based, therefore purchasing mainstream products tends to be a barrier for a diverse community; hence why they will tend to go to your competitor who is more accessible than you.

If I'm colour blind, what is the point of your service providing messages in red; especially if it is designed to deliver a beneficial consumer message?

I will be more than delighted to forward you further information by the middle of next week, as I am celebrating my wife's birthday this evening.

 

[cmcp]

Any discussion time on accessibility is a win for me - awareness and thought are so important but this is getting silly. I actually think you started your lecture in the first three posts.

You need to channel your energy into gaining a greater understanding of the issues with the groups it affects before you approach SME with this attitude.

For the record, you can have a fully W3C compliant site which is not accessible, and you can have a fully accessible site which is not W3C compliant.

Again, I applaud your sentiments. Never forget - accessibility's a right, not a privilege. You just need to learn to communicate that without alienating people.

 

[JohnsonandJohnson]

Any discussion time on accessibility is a win for me - awareness and thought are so important but this is getting silly. I actually think you started your lecture in the first three posts.

You need to channel your energy into gaining a greater understanding of the issues with the groups it affects before you approach SME with this attitude.

For the record, you can have a fully W3C compliant site which is not accessible, and you can have a fully accessible site which is not W3C compliant.

Again, I applaud your sentiments. Never forget - accessibility's a right, not a privilege. You just need to learn to communicate that without alienating people.

cmpc what do you actually do, as I'm intrigued? I have some information which tackles the issues surrounding the attitudes of the SME sector with reference to accessibility, but I feel that this will be for a new thread. But would welcome your response when I commence the subject.

I think it will open a good discussion, and in-turn assist the SME sector obtaining a return of investment.

Thank you for your contribution.

 

[cmcp]

I'm a front-end web developer, accessibility is important to me.

Good luck with your discussion; I think you have a good representation of what the replies will be from this thread!

 

I have dealt with a diverse community of people, with various needs. Visual impairment, Learning Disabilities, Hearing Impairment; Colour Blindness, to name a few.

In this modern age we tend to find that there are a significant number of businesses that are just web based, therefore purchasing mainstream products tends to be a barrier for a diverse community; hence why they will tend to go to your competitor who is more accessible than you.

If I'm colour blind, what is the point of your service providing messages in red; especially if it is designed to deliver a beneficial consumer message?

I will be more than delighted to forward you further information by the middle of next week, as I am celebrating my wife's birthday this evening.

I think you have got off on the wrong foot by making outrageous claims about the effect on sales that accessibility would have.

Many long term web people are well aware that the effect is insignificant.

Would have been better if you had started a discussion on how important people perceived accessability and WC3 compliance were to business's.

Earl

 

[cmcp]

Many long term web people are well aware that the effect is insignificant.

Is it? Because in theory, the more accessible your website is the more people can get on it. The more accessible your website is the more effective the usability is.

If bricks and mortor stores had nothing but maximising profit on their minds, I'm sure they'd segment their target audience by disability too. Fortunately in the real world discrimination like this isn't possible.

 

[Esk247]

Accessibility is yet another layer of problems for a web designer to over come. First you have to make sure your website works with most browsers, firefox, opera, chrome, explorer (and all of the latest versions). Then you have to make sure it works on the new iPhones and other Web Browsing Phones and then you have to make sure everyone can access it correctly.

The problem with accessibility re: partially sighted, is that you go from having a rainbow of colour schemes to having a handfull of them to use in your pallette. In the end, you may as well just stick up black text on a white background and have nothing else on the website because of the restrictions you're faced with.

When designing a website for a client who sold products to those with sight problems, we encountered many a problem, the text size, the text colour, the background colour, the images, the layout (things cannot be close together), the logo (making sure it was readable). This all pushed the website around so much that to someone who has normal sight it looked stupid, it became in-accessible to the other people or just plain ugly.

Since then, websites have come along a bit, you can now put coding in to allow for different backgrounds/colour schemes and text size changes but still..it costs much much more and can you recoup that cash from targetting this other market?