Hi All,
On 15/10/2007, at 9:12 PM, Charlotte Magnusson wrote:
> My problem concerns accessibility/usability and why the well
> known methods for making stuff more accessible (and useable) are not
> used....
Charlotte, you raise an important question and I tend to agree with
most of what Karel, Ken, and Gunner are saying, so I won't go over
the ground they have already covered. Let me add another point, in
defence of the organisations and individuals who make decisions about
such things.
If you are working inside an organisation, you literally cannot see
what a design looks like to people who are seeing it for the first
time. Related to this is the fact that you are in a position
(speaking technically in terms of 'the logic of positions') which
occludes the problematic relation between people (customers,
citizens, and users) and designs. So it is not a question of ignoring
something that is obvious, rather it is ignored because it is INVISIBLE.
One expensive way in which some usability advocates have tried to
make the invisible visible is by the use of Personas. From my
perspective this is an expensive way of dealing with a political
issue in highly dysfunctional organisations. But that's another
argument for another day. The point to recognise that taking account
of a previously unrepresented constituency (people) and giving them a
voice at the table is a political act and requires political management.
Of course, there is an overriding motivation which gets in the way of
usability. Commercial organisations are interested in making money.
Bureaucracies are interested in control. Their interest in people is
quite limited, even if in our time, being nice to people may help
them make more money or exercise more efficient control. There is a
longer history of organisations achieving their ends without taking
account of people. These organisations have no history of methods for
adapting to the needs of people.
What this means--and here I am suggesting that you may be asking the
wrong question-- is that even if you identify all the 'reasons' why
'stuff may not be accessible', you might not be any nearer making
them so.
Thus the more useful question may be: how do we make institutions
routinely take account of people? The approach we have found quite
useful in achieving this is through the development of regulation.
I have written about this at length and won't bore the rest of the
list with references on this, but if anyone is interested, I can give
you some URL's and other references that will lead you to some case
histories and arguments. Or just visit our site and browse.
David
--
blog: www.communication.org.au/dsblog
web: http://www.communication.org.au
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