Comments on: Failed and Flawed Accessibility Organisations

By: börsenspiel

börsenspiel — Mon, 07 May 2007 22:06:44 +0000

How can an open forum fail if it is able to stir up a discussion and change one’s thought process? I will agree that the nature of an open forum is not without it’s issues, but it’s better than having a small, closed group that only certain people with certain ideas push through, honestly. It smacks of elitism.

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By: What is Web Universality? | Joe Dolson Accessible Web Design

What is Web Universality? | Joe Dolson Accessible Web Design — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:46:27 +0000

[...] Ian Lloyd: Failed and Flawed Accessibility Organizations [...]

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By: Leo Redpath

Leo Redpath — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 18:27:17 +0000

Just a plain mans view this.
1. The industry leaders cannot agree on Browser Standards or more appropriately recommendations (RFC’s) and impliment them.

2. The idea that accessibility for all can be put in one box is an illusion. A lot of lively debate including this one of what disabled people need, seems to attempt to drive down the lowest common denominator route. Where in fact Disability is wide ranging. Physical, Sensory, Cognitive issues that can vary from Simple to Profound and Complex Disability.

3 The process is constant development and design, where one can, with what resources one may have available but I wonder sometimes if Accessibility guru’s I have heard and read are doing it for themselves and getting a good living out of it.

If you wonder by the way, I have nearly 60 years experiance of living with disability and also work with disability organisations in the UK.

It tires me out some of the controversy and prefer the rational debate to sniping and put downs.

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By: Mardahl.dk » Motivations for Web accessibility

Mardahl.dk » Motivations for Web accessibility — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 16:49:04 +0000

[...] Accessibility is not an issue where everyone agrees completely, however. Recent discussions here, here, and here prove that. That type of disagreement can be pretty daunting to newcomers. At the other extreme: what do you do when someone asks you, “why bother with this Firefox thing when you have Internet Explorer?” (In fact, that person first thought Firefox was a search engine, and couldn’t see how it was better than Google.) Not everyone is Web-savvy. There is a lot (and I mean a lot) of educating and explaining to do, and it is best done in a positive, constructive atmosphere. In such cases, listening is probably one of the most important things to do. [...]

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By: plauke

plauke — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:30:27 +0000

i’ll just quote myself, if i may:

as a forum to discuss (mainly) html/css, accessifyforum has certainly been valuable . however, it has not grown into a place where accessibility is discussed, regardless of technology…a place where dialog is fostered among the many different stakeholders (content developers, user agent developers, users with disabilities) and where solutions are explored that go beyond html/css/flash/etc, beyond WCAG 1.0 or even WCAG 2.0. this makes me think of the ideas behind the tangram model http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefings/briefing-101/html/
we need to move beyond WCAG and beyond the ideal of “universal accessibility” – laudable in principle, but a pipe dream (until we get some hardcore solutions like servers with content stored in all sorts of formats and CC/PP negotiation between browser and server). i’m not talking ghetto-isation, or the old “text only version for blind users” misconceptions…but an aknowledgment that, in certain situations, it’s just not possible to provide one solution that works equally well for all audiences, even with adaptation.

(from http://accessify.com/news/2007/02/mike-davies-thoughts-on-the-state-of-accessibility-barcamp-london-2/#comment-3909)

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By: Stephen Kelly

Stephen Kelly — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:09:38 +0000

Mike perhaps wants to see something that’s engages people who aren’t enthusiastic about accessibility – in a positive way. I would like to see that too. That’s less than easy to achieve, as anybody who sits in a role between enthusiastic developers and unenthusiastic business people will tell you.

I’m sure Mike is not attacking any of the sites he mentions – but thinking out loud about how to take things to another level. How do we positively engage people who are presently turned off by accessibility (and the accessibility community).

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By: Gary Hides

Gary Hides — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:24:44 +0000

Accessibility is massively in the mainstream now. Much of this is to do with the above organisations and others.

Yes, there’s always improvements to be made. But that is life. When do we ever get to the stage where we say ‘Well I can’t improve that any further – It’s finished’? We don’t, because we’re always striving to improve. Especially when it comes to fast moving technologies like the web.

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By: Grant Broome

Grant Broome — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:36:10 +0000

I don’t really understand how GAWDS or AccessifyForum have failed. Only something that does not meet its purpose can fail.

GAWDS succeeds as being an index of accessible web developers.
AccessifyForum succeeds as a place of discussion about web accessiblity.

I think there may be an expectation for these organisations to be more than that, and to that end may not meet the needs of everybody.

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By: Marco

Marco — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:46:49 +0000

Well, if it weren’t for the good folks at the Accessify Forums, I wouldn’t even be here as an advocate for accessibility of information, to be honest. As well, I firmly believe in Mike Cherim’s vision of what Accessites is all about. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have joined the group to begin with. Have I failed then? I don’t feel that I have.

How about having a small group to initiate matters, then also take into account the public perception of the state of affairs and build that into the methodologies and best practices? I would rather belong to this type of group than the former. So, I feel that I’m moving in the right direction.

The fact that this very discussion is creating ripples across the standards-based community, which I think is a great thing. Let’s stir things up and figure out the best way to move forward.

Mike Davies’ initial comments on universality and accessibility confused me, until I read Joe Dolson’s comments that clarified universality _as_ accessibility. I’m glad this was clarified as I read the article in a completely different way until this point was brought up. (Thanks Joe)

My $0.02 CAD…

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By: Phil Teare

Phil Teare — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:40:32 +0000

Obviously there’s now a descussion going on in the AF.

I and litteraly thousands of others find the Accessify Forum very useful. I couldn’t agree more with this article. While there are those who believe valid HTML and CSS are all there is to know, they’re often put straight by the more practical, well experienced, others on the AF.

While I’d love to see the utopian forua described (Open, grass roots, all encompassing, focussed, progressive …) I doubt we can very quickly magic one up. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, but…

The one thing I can thank Mike D for is I will now be looking at other forums (starting with this one). But I can’t look at Joe Clake’s ‘Glimmer of Hope’ as its closed…

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