Here, before you, the best accessibility question and answer volley ever:
Q: What are handicap people looking for in a website?
A: What kind of handicap are you talking about?
Kids, that's the kind of sandpaper-on-open-flesh-wound awkwardness that can't be made up. No, that kind of tip-toe train wreck just happens and you get to grin because you got to watch it happen.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
yeah, that was pretty golden. you could almost hear the quiet intake of breath throughout the room.
From the "Defects of the Body" section of English as She Is Spoke:
A blind
A lame
A bald
An ugly
A squint-eyed
A scurf
A deaf
Add to that "sandpaper-on-open-flesh-wound" defect.
"There but by the grace of God... "
Do you believe they were trying to be insensitive? Sometimes people just don't know any better and sometimes they simply have a hard time choosing the right words.
Did you beat them up in the parking lot?
> Did you beat them up in the parking lot?
No, I took my Protec helmet off and strapped it on him.
It should be up to the browser manufacturers to sort it out anyway. :p
Does the title have anything to do with "Glouchester?"
I'd choose benzine or paint thinner on open flesh wounds rather than sandpaper, just for the sake of added cheap drama.
Ouch. Is that the kind of moment in life where you wish the other peron slipped into a dimensional vortex, never to return?
The people on either side of me let loose with a very low whistle at that point. We were waiting for the lightning strike, or at the very least a nervous cough.
Can we get a little more contex on the question? I seem to be out of the loop.
Sitting in my local barber's last week I noticed a gentleman in a wheelchair getting his haircut by one of the barbers. The conversation between the two quickly took a turn for the worse:
Barber: So my friend asked me to take photographs for this disco night he arranged. It was a fantastic night. It was for people with disabilities. They were having a great time and the other norm....uh...non-disab...um...regul....erm..........
"Can we get a little more contex on the question? I seem to be out of the loop."
Glad someone else asked that, too. I'm equally confused. I'm guessing we're making fun of them assuming accessibility only has something to do with a specific handicap?
@jared: Call Me Ishmael ... Moby-Dick
Greg, you left off the best part - when the (first) asker responded with a hand-waving "any kind."
Context: the Q&A after an accessibility talk at An Event Apart Boston. So this question came after an hour of discussing the wide range of disabilities that users may be dealing with.
Liz:
Wow...thanks! That's a major bit of context that clears up the whole thread.
I suppose that's akin to every AIGA presentation where a web person is presenting. Inevitably, the first question is always a sheepish one from the back: "umm...did you use Flash to do all of that?"
Good lord. Forget the words they used. Did anyone remind them that disabled users are, y'know, still human beings? Who also want to read the news and buy crap on eBay?
Sounds like it was a bullet-train wreck.
I think one problem with 'explaining' accessibility is putting an emphasis on disablities to begin with. IMHO, accessibility should be pitched more as a 'accessible for ANYONE' rather than 'make sure you include these few folks over here'.
Of course, it is very much about disabilities as well, but in my experience, once you mention 'disability' the audience quickly closes their entire mindset around 'oh, BLIND people!' rather than the concept of 'accessible to all people on all devices' type of goal.
Darrel,
That's all fine and dandy, but should we make all sites conform to the bare bones mobile device version? Accessibility is a great idea, but when people become so engulfed in one idea they tend to create a bubble around themselves and forget everything else. Accessibility is not any more important that visual design, usability, content, aesthetics, etc. People just always tend to circle the wagons around their narrow field and call everyone else stupid.
I think that the challenge is to address accessibility as part of the whole package that is web design, not as a package in itself. I see this new push towards making everything accessible and I see people who profess themselves to be experts at it trump every other aspect of web design. How about figuring out ways that makes sites accessible, but do not hurt other aspects of design? Is it possible that we may, for example, make a version of the site just for the blind (whatever the technology... could be CSS because content is now separate), so that by making it accessible to people who use JAWS readers we're not taking away from the experience of users who can see just fine?
Also, while it is a noble goal to make every site accessible to everyone perhaps, sometimes the site's purpose does not render itself to this. For example, it would be great to make highways accessible to the blind, but for some reason we haven't done it yet.
Yes, I know I'm gonna get flamed because I'm not being politically correct or breaking out of the accessibility bubble. All I will say is do not become the Jakob Nielsens of accessibility. Ideas are good, but becoming pompous extremists isn't.
Kirk,
I can't help it but say something about your post because you are the typical example of the people I can't stand. You would rather focus on the barber stumbling over a word that was perfectly OK to use (I'll explain it for you in a second why) than on the fact that he was talking about the blind in a very positive way and was genuinely happy that they were having fun at the event.
Now, here's why using the word "normal" was perfectly OK for him and if he weren't indoctrinated by this ridiculous wave of political correctness pushed by people like you (who lack reasoning ability) he would.
Now try to follow the logic here. The word "normal" comes from the word "norm". When it comes to vision the norm for people is to be able to see. People who are not able to see are not the norm because there is something that caused them to lose their ability to see. It was something genetic for those who were born blind. Or it was an accident or disease for those who used to be able to see and lost that ability. Are you still with me? Probably not, but anyway... Hence the people who are able to see are the norm, so are perfectly OK to call "normal". The people who cannot are called DISabled. Notice the "DIS" part. It means that they are UNABLE to do something that normal people are able to do.
You are from the same crowd that gets terribly offended when someone who's morbidly obese is called "fat". Oh no! So insensitive! Let's call them "slightly overweight". Oh no, someone might eventually find that term too insensitive and offensive too. When did this whole country turn on oversensitive pussies that can't handle FACTS? Was it before or after most people have become mentally challenged?
It would be nice, both for people who are blind to varying degrees and to those who just like to have something unique on their pages, if browsers supported the audio components of CSS.
I haven't explored it too much myself, being a trades assistant trying to make myself more creative to start with before I delve further into making something nice, but some of the standards that are being neglected (for whatever reason) are pretty damn cool, for publishing on-line and off.
Something else on my wishlist is the native browser support of VRML97/X3D, and development of devices that can somehow provide stimulation to the viewer so they can "feel" such things. Look at all the work going on lately regarding the control of a PC with nothing more than thought patterns. It would be nice if someone was working on a return feedback system.
Make the web more accessable to people who are handicapped? Why not simply fully support the standards that exist today, and increase the ability of every member of the public to truely experience the web* in more than simply 2 dimensions and 2 senses.
*Caution: DNI (Direct Neural Interface) may prove too stimulating for old people or people with heart conditions.
To clarify my first post. I am all for accessibility, but I can't stand the trend in the industry where a crowd of idiots who cannot think for themselves runs from one buzz word to the next and shouts it on every corner with a "holier than thou" attitude.
Flash. The crowd of idiots runs around shouting "Flash" on every corner and every site is made in Flash whether it makes any sense for it be in Flash or not. Jakob Nielsen publishes an article called "Flash 99% Bad" and the crowd of idiots starts bashing Flash on every corner and trash every site made in Flash, even the most amazing ones. Usability. The crowd of idiots declares that everything is about usability and that every site should adhere to cookie cutter standards. All text should be black on white, certain size, all links should be a certain shade of blue and underlined. Ajax. Let's make everything in Ajax. Flex. Forget Flex. Let's make everything in Flex! Now we come to Accessibility. Target.com got sued so now everyone has taken it seriously and pretends like they have always cared terribly.
The crowd of idiots rejoices. With accessibility comes an added bonus. If anyone questions the reasoning behind making an internal site that serves workers who by the nature of the job cannot be blind... or a movie or a video game site, the whole point of which is to visually stimulate the users, in any way whatsoever, they are immediately declared an insensitive bastard.
Yes, yes... You are the only ones who see the light. Whatever you'd like to believe in order for the world to make sense inside the tiny bubble you've decided to limit your existence to.
Ben -
I'm there with you. It is unlikely that everything will be accessible to everyone. Making continued steps forward to getting the gist of the information and experience to as many people as we can, informing, educating and broadening some horizons in the process is what keeps me interested in making the projects I work on accessible for the users.
Ranndino -
Decaf.
Ranndino, I think it's time for you to go get your own blog.
"That's all fine and dandy, but should we make all sites conform to the bare bones mobile device version?"
The slippery slope argument is tiring and pointless.
Businesses should care about accessibility. It's good for business.
If you don't want to build a version of your site for mobile devices running Opera .8 beta used by blind spanish-speaking orangutans, that's fine with me. ;o)
"inside the tiny bubble you've decided to limit your existence to."
The problem is really folks like that believe these design goals are restrictive bubbles. It's like David Carson bitching about all the words in his magazine screwing up his art. All design goals need to play together for them to work.
"It is unlikely that everything will be accessible to everyone."
Absolutely. The goal of accessibility is 'make your business/content more accessible to more people using more devices'. You'll never please everyone. The web, however, makes it a lot easier to please more of your audience than in other mediums.
Information technology has hitch-hiked its way through the creation or enhancement of everyday consumer electronics. People no longer look to loacal radio or public brodcasts for answers- internet enabled computers and mobile devices have enabled developers to introduce newer and faster ways to not only find information but share it as well. Accessibility is important - no matter who the target party is. While being able to encapsulate every niche of the target audience/consumer market is ideal - is it truly possible. Obviously there are many forms of handicaps - the majority of which is able to use/access web based information. Are these proposed handicapped individuals, that are unable to use or are hindered by the current format/structure of these resources truly disapponted? - not to sound like a terrible person but what blind person is rallying to use the internet - a medium that is for the most part visual- and what percentage of the blind population does this compose. Yes - everyone can freak out now and say i made an attack on the handicapped. But the truth is to help the physical handicapped - society does have tools to navigate menues and options or technologies to replace what hands can do - UMMM the last time i checked Stephen Hawking could use a computer. The point is - companies dealing with information technology should not spend the resources trying to make every medium 100% accessible for everyone else. The last time i checked there were handicapped people before al gore created the internet - lets try to refine and revisit the older more established mediums for informaiton technology that is already more accesible to people because of their long-term historical estalishment.
*side anecdote- just created the required email account on gmail - there was a tiny handicap symbol next to the line on which you were to type the random array of letters shown in order to confirm/verify your registration - find this somewhat ironic - i clicked on it - only to hear a bunch of gibberish played backwards - the voice then said in english "once again" and repeated the garbled words. Well done