Cheers, well written!

My fear, however, is that the state of accessibility today is closer to the former than people think.

There are clearly enough low-vision and no-vision people in the world to where the target group is large enough to matter to us. I don’t have any stats on this, but I imagine the number is higher than that of people who need wheelchair ramps.

I would seriously doubt that. My guess is also unsubstantiated, however, based on that I almost never see a low/no-vision person, and that I see a person in a wheelchair almost every other day, I’d guess that’s not the case.

Of course, I could be wrong.

(Editor’s Note: I agree with you if we’re talking only about no-vision people. I just feel like low-vision is probably a pretty huge group. I mean, if you want to be liberal about the definition of “low-vision”, you could pretty much include anyone who has trouble reading a computer screen.)

I’m sure you have factored in the fact that you wouldn’t know if you saw a low-vison, or even blind, person, whereas someone in a wheelchair is clearly identifiable? :)

I don’t have a lot of answers here, but that was a great read, Mike. I do take a bit of exception to you’re “changing a false ideal” comment, though. That ideal is not false — it may be unrealistic or “not there yet” in today’s web, but to stop chasing the ideal would be counter-productive, as well. If screenreader manufacturers aren’t doing a good enough job reading valid and well-formed code, then we need to kick them in the ass and get them to start chasing the ideal with us. If we just give in and decide the ideal will never happen, well, it never will.

All in all, great job. I’m certainly convinced that most of our standards-based sites aren’t really accessible, but are simply more accessible (which is good, but not good enough).

I quite often see people with white sticks, probably as many as wheelchair users, and they’re merely the worst case of visually impaired. For most of the visual disabilities, colour vision deficiencies for example, you don’t get anything that claims “I’m disabled”, and we as “non disabled” don’t have anything to see that these people actually exist.

Yet they do exist. Even though they don’t advertise it and we can’t spot them as easily as we can spot someone who’s missing an arm or who can’t walk.

I would seriously doubt that. My guess is also unsubstantiated, however, based on that I almost never see a low/no-vision person, and that I see a person in a wheelchair almost every other day, I’d guess that’s not the case.

When you’re dealing with a site or set of sites with daily pageviews in the millions, just because you never see these people while you’re walking down the street does not mean they do not potentially represent a huge number of customers (though perhaps a small percentage).

Although using CSS-P and properly marked up lists don’t automatically make a site more accessible, it does generally help, at least a bit. I’ve seen several people decide to take the leap into CSS, and after a while of learning the basics, getting much more interested in the semantics of writing good code and designing with accessibility more in mind. It seems one of those natural progressions a lot of people make.

Personally I feel, if someone has the right training/education, writing relatively accessible code doesn’t really cost more than other coding. As long as the issues are known about in advance, and built in to the general development process, the additional costs are minimal.

I’ll admit it’s probably harder with large media sites as you’re used to, I’ve never been involved in anything on that scale, and it doesn’t get away from the fact that there are a hell of a lot of inaccessible sites out there, maintained by people without the skills to make them accessible. There are obviously some pretty major costs to train people and then recode/redesign sites.

Screenreader makers also need to pull their thumbs out their arses and try and catch up with the other browsers around now. Perhaps WaSP shouldn’t have ended the browser development campaign completely, but shifted focus from the IE/Opera/NS/Moz browsers to Screenreader writers.

There is nothing like sitting with a person using a screen reader on a site you’ve just coded to learn how they ’see’ your site. I just did it today as it happens, and I’ve gone back and made some tweaks to the markup the CMS generates as a result.

One example is that JAWS reads 2:30 as a time, but not 2.30 .

I’d recommend everyone spend at least one session with Blind person and screen reader. It is a revelation.

We have also hired a consultant who has access to testers with a range of disabilities.

I don’t think we do, and as such how can anyone else (including Governments). That is why I believe we cannot or should not be legislated.

If Freedom Scientific has to charge $1095 for a copy of JAWS, that either means they are very greedy or the market is too small for them to recoup their costs of development in a cheaper pricing model.

It is cheaper to buy a Mac Mini with a built in screen reader than it is to purchase just JAWS for Windows. I cannot vouch for the quality of Voice Over in Mac OS X 10.4 especially when compared with JAWS.

What I do know is that in order to be proficient wither either it takes a lot of time memorizing keyboard commands and the like. This is not bad – it just means that in order to truly evaluate how useful these programs are you have to really be able to use them.

But that is a side note – the point I really want to make is this:

Governments are required by law to provide assistive technology to their employees should they need it (I believe schools are also required to provide AT for students who need it). Governments almost exclusivly run some version of Windows, and JAWS is pretty much the defacto screen reader for Windows. Maybe Freedom Scientific knows this. Maybe Freedom Scientific takes this fact into account when they determine how much they want to charge people for their software? I don’t know.

Maybe one day insurance companies will cover assistive technologies like screen readers, in the same way that some cover hearing aids now?

Now, if it costs so much to make a screen reader for such a small market, why would Apple make one and include it with their OS?

The simple answer is because no other vendor was doing this for Apple, and if Apple even wanted to take a shot at getting into goverment they need to have assistive technology available for their platform.

The benefit is that now anyone can have a computer with a screen reader for $499. That would cost upwards of $1500 in the PC world.

My company provided pretty good support for accessibility, mostly due to our wish to sell to the government who requires the Section 508 work. But we were greatly informed by one of our developers was blind and could point out all the problems from a true usability standpoint. His complaints were brought home to me when we bought JAWS and actually used the app through the screen reader.

Which brings me to the real, well, “DUH,” moment that I had after using JAWS. Of course acessibility is not in following standards. That’s because accessibility is a special case of usability. It’s like assuming compliant HTML always results in an easy to use website. As for HTML not working in screen readers, when has it ever ‘just worked’?

Forget the consultants. Buy a copy of JAWS and use your web site. You probably already have the tools to undesrtand how usable things from door handles to GUI widgets are. JAWS is only $1,000 and a large development organization or one focused on web design should spring for a single license that can be used for learning and as part of your final QA process.

BTW, the U.S. government does subsidize quite a bit of assistive technology. Each state has different programs in addition to the support provided through Medicare. My sister has received lots of different, expensive pieces of equipment over the years: microfiche-style magnifying machines that turn everything into very high contrast for reading print, portable touch-screen speaking aid, blind radio service receiver, membership in ‘accessible toy libraries,’ all of which cost over $500.

In my opinion, I agree with Mike that there are more visually impaired people in the world… but my estimation is that why would they deal with the Web? I would think that somebody with a hardtime seeing wouldn’t have a yearning to explore something on a computer.

With that said, however, I do agree with everyone who says that it’s our responsibility to bring the option to them. I just don’t think right now it’s a must do.

Part of the problem is that it’s too easy to be tempted to put all “disabled” people into one lump group. But the needs of someone who is a parapalegic vs. a blind person vs. a deaf person are all different. The parapalegic probably can access any site a “normal” person can. A blind person would most likely use a screen reader. A deaf person would probably access the site “normally.”

But, since every human being is different, including having different abilities (and disabilities), we can only do our best. For instance, I’m red-green color blind. Does that mean someone should design their site in a way that I can see the colors “normally?” No. I’m USED to the way colors appear to me. Should they make the effort to at least underline links as well as alter their color? Yes! The point being is that there is no way to communicate to a blind person that the color of a shirt on JCPenny’s web site is red, other than telling them it’s red. I, personally, see certain shades differently than a non-color-blind person. But I’m used to it. People make adjustments to their own disabilities.

One trap of accessability is to use it as a box to confine creativity. Go to a store, you know, the brick kind. Wal*Mart or something. Due to the ADA of the early 1990s, some adjustments are apparant. Wheelchair access in the bathrooms and dressing rooms. Automatic doors with curb-cuts for wheelchairs. But the overall shopping experience for a “normal” person is unchanged.

And maybe we’re attacking the problem all backwards. Maybe the people who make screen readers and such should be looking at the way designers design and making the screen readers work better for that.

What we’re really talking about is accessability for sight-limited people. Not for all disabled people because the web is a visual medium. But those of us working on tiny little budgets have other things to worry about, like getting a site done with a profit. I can’t charge 25% more to make a site “accessable.” Even if I want to.

Imagine if we had to make thing accessable by law for all disabilities. We’d go out of business. Would you have to make a shopping site more difficult to use for shopping addicts? How do you design a site that is usable for someone suffering from some unknown ailment? They know what they need, but how do you?

I guess, in the end, we just need a good, firm set of “rules” that we can follow that make sites as accessable as they will ever be without designing every site individually for every person. And I think that good markup and CSS are a great place to start.