Accessibility is for everyone
You don’t really “get it” until you experience it first-hand. Like I did watching Debra Wells use a screen reader at last month’s Web Standards Group meeting and like I am currently while learning to use my new half-keyboard due to problems with my right wrist.
I think most people in this space now accept that people who use public and even intranet sites are going to have varying ranges of abilities or disabilities, although I still get the sense that there’s a perception amongst some that 99.9% of users will be using our preferred browser at our preferred resolution, be competent computer users and have no disabilities and that we don’t have to worry about the other 0.1%.
But something I realised today while learning to use my new keyboard (which only requires a single hand to operate, switching between the two halves by holding down the space key plus a sometimes complex combination of space and shift keys for punctuation, numbers and function keys) … when you are typing at 10 word per minute, you really notice it when a web form requires a lot of typing! Also, I’m trying to quit using the mouse or rather trackball scrollwheel as that’s bad for your carpal tunnel, and you really miss it when there web pages are 3 metres long!
But this is not unique to people who are unable to type fast - people still have to enter that same amount of text regardless of whether it’s at 10 wpm or 120 wpm.
If you are designing for accessibility, to cater for people with disabilities or who have other difficulties or factors impeding the use of your site or application … it benefits everyone!
Sure, people who type slow (such as myself until I master this keyboard and hopefully achieve the theoretical speed of 65 wpm) are going to benefit most and it may make the difference between them being able to use your website or not … but everyone will be happy if you don’t make them type as much or scroll as much.
High contrast text is going to be of most benefit to people with vision impairment … but it’s going to benefit everyone as it will ensure your text is easier to read. Same with larger fonts.
This is probably stuff we all already know - but in the last couple of days I’ve come to really understand for myself the benefit of designing for accessibility now that it’s something that’s affected me, albeit in a very small way.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:07 am
By the way I did *not* type this post on my new keyboard … it would have taken me over an hour
December 6th, 2007 at 12:23 am
I don’t know if there are any stats, but I suspect that a good 20-30% of the abled bodied web audience have some type of disability its just that they don’t see it as a disability. Colour blindness, mild RSI, short sigted, reading problems etc etc..
December 6th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Good post Nat. It’s one of the key messages I like to get out to everyone - that accessibility really benefits everyone. Like Gary said, there are so many of us who have some form of RSI, plus things like situational disabilities (eg many web folks working for HOURS on end with screens and not taking a break - causes lots of visual fatigue).
December 16th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Nothing like experience as a teacher.
Dave
January 12th, 2008 at 11:56 am
It is great to read a post on accessibility on a site that is not purely about accessibility. I agree with Gary about the proportion of users being that high too. Add to that those who have had a long tiring day, those with headaches, those with children disturbing concentration ………. there are masses of people who really need clean clear uncluttered sites with high contrast, let alone any of the other accessibility factors.
Aging populations are only going to increase the need for accessibility.
Now I feel a bit guilty about not posting on the issue myself and will rectify this soon.
January 12th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
[...] to Nathaniel, and his article Web Accessibility is for Everyone on Purecaffeine.com, which gave me the motivation to dig out my notes on the subject and write this [...]