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Mojo
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Accessibility is not your problem? - 7/13/2007 12:28:52
Here is an interesting read by a known accessibility expert.
"If a browser or adaptive technology can or should handle an accessibility issue, I won’t."
-- Joe Clark
http://joeclark.org/appearances/atmedia2007/
Font Resizing -
quote:
For example, we’re constantly told not to use pixels as a unit to size text. Or we’re told that pixels are an absolute unit and you must only use relative units.
Pixels are a relative unit by spec, full stop. You can use them if you want, full stop. You can use any unit for any purpose. You are merely suggesting the font size. It’s up to the browser or screen magnifier or whatever to pick the real size.
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Mojo
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RE: WHEN Accessibility is not your problem? - 7/13/2007 14:54:51
quote:
If you're going to post a thread it should be an accurate post. The title of this is very misleading.
Nice Jaybee. Real classy. This is NOT your forum.
My title was accurate - look at the end of the title. See that little character thingy? It's called a question mark. It causes the title to make complete sense. I simply didn't want to copy the original title. I thought I was add some variety to the post.
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womble
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RE: WHEN Accessibility is not your problem? - 7/13/2007 14:58:01
quote:
I know the accessibility forum is a bit on the Nazi side, but I didn't know exactly how lost it was until now.
Mojo, with all due respect, the title could be misleading to those who don't know a lot about the accessibility debate, and maybe Jaybee didn't explain herself in any depth but I'm guessing she was on her way out of the door when she posted that as I know she's going away for a few days, but to label the accessibility forum as "a bit on the Nazi side" is also very misleading and very provocative. <edit>And then to edit that out!</edit>
There's always been a healthy air of debate in the accessibility forum over the best way to achieve accessibility and the best techniques to use, as there is on the other forums on Outfront. If you want somewhere where views on accessibility are very strongly and forcefully put across, and where opposing views rapidly turn into flame wars on occasions (I got stuck in the middle of one after making what I thought was a non-controversial post about an accessibility icon) try somewhere like the Accessify forums. That's not to say that it's a bad place - there are some real accessibility experts there who we can all learn a lot from, but there are some very strongly held views.
Oufront always has been, and remains to be a great place to debate things.
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Mojo
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RE: WHEN Accessibility is not your problem? - 7/13/2007 15:13:13
I don't see anything wrong with the title. It is a fair question. It was meant to spark discussion about the issues. I didn't expect one moderator to act in a rude manner to another mod. Especially over something a lame as the title of the article.
< Message edited by Mojo -- 7/14/2007 23:48:19 >
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mtfm
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RE: Accessibility is not your problem? - 7/13/2007 15:21:43
Interesting article. I especially liked the following:
quote:
Whoever visits your site has ultimate control over how it looks, even if they don’t know that or they’re using a broken browser.
Yeah, like 90% of the end users.
If you want your site to work and to be successful, you have to work around cerain things such as the fact that most people either don't have the appropriate tools or don't know how to use the tools they have.
Interesting too to notye the difference between him and most other accessibility experts-- instead of the normal "we should make it accessible to all if it kills us," he's saying "let it be inaccessible, it will take care of itself." Kind of a free market type thing.
Both sides of this particular argument are utopian dreamers, but it's an interesting mixture to be sure!
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womble
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RE: Accessibility is not your problem? - 7/14/2007 5:36:38
quote:
ORIGINAL: mtfm
Interesting article. I especially liked the following:
quote:
Whoever visits your site has ultimate control over how it looks, even if they don’t know that or they’re using a broken browser.
Yeah, like 90% of the end users.
If you want your site to work and to be successful, you have to work around cerain things such as the fact that most people either don't have the appropriate tools or don't know how to use the tools they have.
That's interesting because that was one of the things that came up at last year's Geek in the Park event. A lot of the people there, though they were pro-accessibility, argued that users had a responsibility to know how to use the software. I can agree with that to a point, but the fact is that those same 90% of users who don't know they're using a broken browser haven't the faintest clue on how to change any settings.
Take my mum (someone, please!  ) - expects all the info to be immediately visible (a good argument for keeping stuff above the fold and making sure stuff that's navigation, looks like navigation), when a site doesn't behave quite how she expects it to blames "the stupid computer", and gets easily bored with a site if it doesn't seem to instantly offer what she needs. The fact is she's not a regular internet user (usually only uses it while I'm around because she's frightened of "breaking something"), her eyesight isn't as good as it once was, but she doesn't come under the category of "disabled", and she's no idea what a screen magnifier or a screen reader is (except that she knows I sometimes use them but she's no idea really how they work. Even though she uses Firefox (because I removed her IE icon ) she's no idea how to resize text, and though I've shown her the Ctrl/scroll wheel trick, she forgets that between browsing sessions.
So, a lot of the web remains "inaccessible" to her. Yes, she may be missing out on stuff because she doesn't stick around to explore what sites have any further, and probably if she used the web enough to be interested enough to learn more about text resizing and stuff, then she'd get somewhere quicker, but the sites that don't make sure their text's a readable size generally for a variety of people miss out because she's not going to stick around long enough to investigate them further.
At the heart of accessibility is "access for all", whether that's due to disability, different hardware, different software, or different needs, and the original intention for the web was that it would be available and accessible to all, not just those with the technological know-how. That's why I believe we should take accessibility seriously and take up the slack where the user-agents haven't yet caught up and got their act together. At the end of the day we all put sites on the web for people to visit them, whether it's to provide information or entertainment or to make money, and if we don't make sure our sites are as accessible as they can be, we're severely limiting our audience.
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BobbyDouglas
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RE: Accessibility is not your problem? - 7/14/2007 12:53:09
It would be interesting to see what programs like JAWS have been doing to correct some of the common tasks that accessibility web designers do on a regular basis.
I hope more people begin to go after the browsers, or the tools used for accessibility, as opposed to the person who created the page. This is a great quote:
quote:
Browsers should do all of the following
* Tell you about font resizing when you start up the browser the first time.
* Always give you buttons on a toolbar.
* Teach you the keyboard equivalents.
* Give you new sets of colour combinations you can use.
* Always fit content to the window width by default.
* Give you zoom layouts.
Because why? Because none of that is your problem.
I especially like the "Give you new sets of colour combinations you can use." This would be huge if there was a way to completely adjust the color that displays when the page renders.
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Printable Version 
). There was a very interesting debate about whether as developers we should be doing all the work on accessibility when by doing so we're to a certain extent letting the user-agent shortcomings off the hook. Personally I tend to feel that it's the end user that's the important one, and who does what shouldn't be their problem. It's argued that while ever developers continue to make up for the short-comings of user-agents, there's no incentive for them to improve. 
