Thanks for starting such an interesting thread, Nick.
I’ve been interested in the replies re whether responsive mobile sites or native apps are preferable for sustainability and inclusion. I think these illustrate one of the difficult things about the terms ‘accessibility’ and ‘inclusion’ – whether they are about making a digital product work for people no matter their abilities or disabilities, or whether they are about making a digital product work for people no matter what device they use it on.
I’ve always thought the conflation of those two separate issues into ‘accessibility’ is unhelpful. After all, I may be able to change the device I use to access a digital product, but I cannot change my abilities or disabilities no matter what assistive technologies are available to help me.
I’ve nothing to add to the great thoughts here already on responsive vs native.
But, as an accessibility professional for the last 14 years, I do have a perspective on Nick’s original question of where ‘web accessibility’ fits into people’s priorities these days.
So far, I’ve not seen anyone on this list saying that web accessibility is high on the list when they specify products.
That is sad. But it is understandable.
From listening to my clients, which include museums and more, the appetite for organisations to make their digital products usable by people with a broad range of abilities and disabilities tends to trend up and down.
Whenever a new law (the DDA turning into the Equality Act 2010) or a new standard (like WCAG 2.0 or the UK Accessibility Standards BS 8878 I created in 2010) brings web accessibility to the surface, organisations take note and check what’s in it for them.
And that’s where people’s reasons for “doing” accessibility are so important. As Dave Gerrard mentioned, there are moral reasons for including people, as well as legal ones. But often organisations look at what they’ve got to gain (the potential of a new audience, but no-one’s proved that with actual figures; the potential of mitigating legal risk, but no-one’s been sued yet) and what they’ve got to lose (what seems to be lots of money to make web accessibility happen, which could have been spent in other places).
So you could look at today’s lack of focus on web accessibility by museums as resulting from the absence of a business argument as compelling as the ones sold by the native app marketeers.
However, I think it pays to think about accessibility motivations very differently. As Richard Malloy’s mention of his iBeacons for adding audio description for visually impaired users hints at, done properly, using creativity rather than emphasizing compliance to WCAG 2.0, accessibility can actually make products more innovative, not less.
I have huge numbers of examples of organisations making leaps of innovation through thinking about the needs of people with various impairments – back as far as the typewriter and telephone, to today’s cool mobile apps like Zombies Run.
In fact, some of the greatest innovations in mobile are coming from the accessibility community, as celebrated every year at conferences like m-enabling – see my video interview with its chair at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqoN7mrIskE
Thinking about the needs of your potential audiences with impairments could be the thing that makes your next website, mobile app or exhibition stand out from all the rest.
Does that sound like a better place from which to start thinking about web accessibility?
And, if you will forgive a quick plug, it’s never been easier to embed accessibility in your development process, as Nick hopes. My new book ‘Including your missing 20% by embedding web and mobile accessibility’ provides a complete framework for doing that.
You can find more information on the book, and free video interviews on the state of the art in digital accessibility from accessibility experts from across the world at: http://hassellinclusion.com/book/
And please let me know if I can help anyone ‘sell’ accessibility to their organisation, in a way that feels like a win-win for the organisation and its audiences.
Bon chance
Jonathan
--
Prof Jonathan Hassell
Director, Hassell Inclusion
Author of the book "Including your missing 20% by embedding web and mobile accessibility" - available now on amazon
Blog: http://hassellinclusion.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jonhassell
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