Comments on: Ignoring website accessibility is not just wrong – it is bad for business

By: Frank Polenose

Frank Polenose — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:20:42 +0000

Would you believe that I tried a heavily advertised comparison website in the UK recently… and for 2 days running their forms didn’t work correctly.

It wasn’t me as I phoned them and they said there were issues. So all that money on TV advertising on those days just wasted. What Credit Crunch?!?!

By: kimberly monday

kimberly monday — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:29:42 +0000

The major problem is the misconception surrounding accessibility. Many believe it will be exorbitantly expensive to build this into their site, while others assume it will render their website ugly or leave it with less functionality.

By: Aido

Aido — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:26:14 +0000

@Dermot couldn’t agree more, great quote

o2 made that giant step by drawing a line in the sand so to speak. Moving forward all new builds must be compliant, historical stuff can catch up. That approach may not suit everyone but it worked and demonstrated good corporate responsibility.

There are sites out there still ignoring the issue, that is why I think it is now probably more important to re-educate the decision makers.

By: Dermot O'Mahony

Dermot O'Mahony — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:00:56 +0000

I’ve been working on building accessible websites since 2004 and was responsible for the whole Accessibility strategy at O2.

I’m amazed that there is still a need to debate this topic, but as long as there are sites out there that are completely ignoring the issue, the debate must continue to rage.

You can talk benefits to your employers, but for a lot of sites the changes to make a site acessible will still be prioritised into a roadmap and will take time to get traction. Even agencies are talking about accessibility as BAU, but with that mindset I think that it is being given no more than a cursory glance as creativity takes priority.

When it comes to selling the case for accessiblity, I like to remember a quote I heard from David Rhys-Wilton at Legal & General, during the launch of th PAS78 guidelines a couple of years ago… he said,

“Being a financial institute, we don’t do things because we should… we do things because they make sound financial sense. This is why we made our website acessible.”

Does anything more need to be said?

By: Aido

Aido — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:14:41 +0000

@Guy Parker Most employers do not get accessibility and the benefits to their Web site. Companies tend to ignore accessibility which I’d put down to lack of understanding instead of ignorance.

You are right, if you tell your company “I know how we can improve our company’s Web site SEO and Usability by following some simple best practice guidelines”. They will sit up and listen, they will ask why have we not done this before. Once you mention the workd Accessibility you get that typical knee jerk reaction which you have already experienced.

Quote the figures from the above post of available additional spend, that will surely raise an eye brow. Talk money sometimes thats all they understand. Explain how they can save money on site maintenance and future redesigns.

Maybe demonstrate a direct benefit to some members of staff such as the simple ability to resize text, alone this could improve one persons working conditions.

Talk Silver Surfers (senior citizens) accessibility is not all about blind users. Everyone at some stage in their life will have difficulty reading small text and possible suffer from colour blindness or limited mobility.

I use a MacBook and like a lot of laptop users (young and old) people are starting to use the keyboard to navigate through a site. PC World recently removed a whole display row of desktop PCs from the sales floor. Users are moving more towards laptops.

Everyone benefits from a compliant Web site

By: Guy Parker

Guy Parker — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:35:56 +0000

So I’m visiting your site as a consequence of this article in the Irish Independent, which is great by the way. I’ve sent much of the last 6 years working on inching my employers web services towards standards compliance for accessibility (amongst other things) and generally find the typical reaction something along the lines of “yeah, great, but we don’t have any blind users”. It is only recently that some of those skeptics have come to see the real benefits of accessibility: a better user experience for everyone, irrespective of device, browser etc.
I have found that highlighting the increased usability for everyone is a more compelling argument for many than focusing solely on increased accessibility.