Dear Accessibility Advocates:
Re Dr. Axel Schmetzke's accessibility survey for vendors:
Bravo!
Recommendations re Question #1 ["Is your product currently accessible for users
with disabilities (esp. for those using screenreaders or talking browsers)?" ]
based on my own advocacy experience:
1. We must not assume that our understanding of what accessibility means is
what other people understand the term to mean. It isn't. The simple fact that
people hear (via screenreaders) and touch (via Braille displays), and as well
as see webpages, and that mouse-clicking and QWERTY keyboards are not the only
way people access computer programs are new, eye-opening concepts to many, many
people, even people with Ph.Ds! One should not assume that accessibility and
assistive technology terminology is common knowledge. It isn't.
2. Thanks to all of the negative ("dis" etc.) labels that are historically
associated with the topic, it is neither common knowledge nor fully accepted in
society that people who do things differently/people with differabilities
a. actually are PEOPLE;
b. are PEOPLE with dreams, hopes, aspirations, feelings, needs, and
civil=people rights like everyone else;
c. actually do, achieve, excel, and access information and need to access
information just like everyone else, though perhaps in different ways.
3. As I learned in my legal advocacy training, the answers we receive depend on
how we ask our questions.
a. Asking about access for "users with disabilities" -- in our society
considered by DICTIONARY definition of the "dis" terms a "limited, impaired,
incapable, incapacitated, non-functioning" entity that is thought not to need
access in the first place ...
the answers we receive may have more to do with
a. We're accessible [whatever that means]. Our company complies with The ADA.
b. Are you implying that we are breaking any laws?
c. What does the law say we must do?
d. We don't have any "dis--" people as customers.
e. The libraries that we serve have not registered any complaints.
ALTERNATIVE. An alternative is to phrase the #1 question to define
accessibility as a universal need of all people, related to the fact of life
that all people, including vendors themselves, do things differently. Some
people like Windows, some people like Macs, some like DOS, some like Linux.
Some people like mouse-clicking, some people like to use keyboard commands.
We also can make sure that OUR #1 QUESTION provides:
a. a definition of accessibility
b. examples of the diversity of differences, also inclusive of mobility,
cognitive, and learning differences (especially due to the mouse dependence of
so many Windows-based programs)
c. a MARKETING reason for making the product accessible (MORE customers/$$$$!)
[Rather than: "Is your product currently accessible for users with
disabilities (esp. for those using screenreaders or talking browsers)?" ]
May I recommend that the first question be worded
1. [In the interest of increasing your sales] ... Is [SPECIFIC PRODUCT NAME]
currently accessible, meaning fully compatible and functional with the diverse
ways people access computers/computer programs, including via talking browser
or screenreader technology that vocalizes webpages/computer files, via
mouse-free keyboard commands, via augmentative communication devices, Braille
display output, hands-free activation technology, etc.
----------------------------
I would be interested in hearing accessibility vendors' opinions on the
survey at this week's CSUN conference. At the huge Texas Library
Association [TLA] Conference/Exhibits (March 28-31 at the San Antonio
Convention Center, which most ALA Exhibitors attend) I will ask the first
question both ways and will share the answers I receive on the list.
Thank you all for your advocacy!
--------------------------------
Ellen Perlow
Chair, ALA ASCLA Century Scholarship Committee
The ALA ASCLA Century Scholarship Diversity Initiative
"Celebrating a New Century that Celebrates Diversity"
Annual Submission Deadline: March 1
Have YOU recruited/applied to be a Century Scholarship applicant
today?
----------------------------------------------------
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