User: The word computer professionals use when they mean diot.
Best Practice Sharing
Mark Gristock, marketing director of usability firm Foviance has attacked web accessibility consultants and organisations for, in his opinion, deliberately witholding their knowledge of user requirements from the rest of the web design sector. He then goes onto say:
If they had any interest in raising standards, they would be sharing their findings with the world and opening dialogue with the design and business community about how best to integrate techniques with standard processes
What universe has Mr Gristock been inhabiting lately?
Obviously not the same one as GAWDS, AbilityNet, WebAIM, Accessites or countless others. The accessible web design sector is full of organisations and individuals work tirelessly to share information with the world, try to establish dialogues with the larger community and develop best practice accessible design recommendations. Many do so freely and are completely dependant upon the voluntary time and goodwill of countless volunteers who are only too happy to spread the word as much as they can.
What is it, exactly, that Mr Gristock is seeking? Could it be that the recent Nomensa report, covering as it did many of Foviance’s potential clients, was more than a little wounding and that this is an attempt to pass the blame? Or was a just an opportunity for a bit of mis-placed self-promotion?
I find it interesting that, despite advocating that accessibility consultants should “share their findings with the world”, there is little evidence of concrete sharing on the Foviance site or within their occasional newsletter. Nor, as far as I am aware, are they members of GAWDS where they could, presumably, contribute to discussions about how best to integrate techniques with standard processes.
It’s always been my personal experience that those who can only offer negative criticism of everyone else are usually those who have the littlest in the way of positive offerings to make themselves. Not only is it generally unwise to mix glass houses with stones – it’s also a good idea to check out whether your stones are targetted correctly before flinging them about wildly.
Dear Black Widow,
Thank you for your kind and carefully considered remarks about my comments on the BBC website. If you followed the debate that followed on the accessify forum, I’m sure you will now have realised the point I was making about the UN research and others of its type. As you can imagine, I got a great deal of feedback from my comments, and I took the time to reply to all of them. Following discussions, we have all reached a point of agreement.
This type of report comes out several times a year, and is picked up by some publication or other as the horror story of the day, but nothing actually changes.
The fundamental issue is a lack of skill and knowledge in the design and development industry. It’s not easy enough to teach, because there is no definitive right answer – different users have different requirements, and different techniques have different impacts on user groups.
I believe that accessibility specialists checking success against WCAG as if it is a succeed/fail checklist rather than a list of guidelines that need to be interpreted in context, has held back the industry-wide adoption of a core technique.
Given that in the last seven years I have given my free time and efforts to trying to change things by conventional methods – joining groups and organisations, speaking at events, trying to develop accessibility schemes, promoting the same type of research to clients as this in the hope that they’ll take it on board, I think I’m entitled to be irritated by a commercial organisation saying the same thing again.
There is nothing new in this report, and that’s frightening. The Internet is the biggest tool of social change I’ve seen in my lifetime, but the disabled are being left out. This is too big an issue to leave to small players giving inconsistent advice. As somebody who is in this industry, you know as well as I do that there are good people and bad people out there – those that want to make the best accessible sites they can, and those that want to make a fast buck. At it’s best, all that this ‘naming and shaming’ approach achieves is driving a few clients to ask their agencies about accessibility. Who knows what they’ll get back?
Accessibility is a core technique for equality in the world. It’s too important to wait for legislation or for the industry to self-regulate – we’ve seen that doesn’t work. We’ve got to create a framework where information on the requirements of disabled users is freely available – and comes directly from the users themselves.
I appreciate that this is a radical solution, but I want the world to be a better place. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result, and I’m bored of being insane.
I hope this clarifies my position.
Following my remarks, a number of high profile individuals in companies and media groups have come together to discuss how we can take accessibility forward. This is not about personal gain, it’s about making the world a better place.
And as to your accusation that the Nomensa report featured a number of Foviance clients, who can tell? As I’m sure you are aware following your attempts to read it, the full document has yet to be approved for publication. We only have the topline press release to go on.
So anyway, that’s the world I live in. A world where inequality is unacceptable, and accessibility should be a mainstream discipline that underpins major projects, rather than sidelined as a niche business that impacts only smaller projects. Is that really that weird?
The issue we have here is that your comments, as reported, tar all web accessibility consultants and organisations with the same brush. Apart from the fact that I feel this is grossly unfair, it misrepresents the true situation – one in which some groups, organisations and individuals are working hard to try and inform, promote and educate. Negative comments like this can do a lot of damage to a sector that is already having to fight waves of apathy from big business and downright antagonism from some web designers.
You mention “accessibility specialists checking success against WCAG as if it is a succeed/fail checklist”. Are you claiming that all web accessibility consultants do this? If not, why generalise? Why make the job that some of us are trying to do that much harder?
The fact that the Internet is not inclusive and is not changing fast enough is hardly the fault of accessiblity specialists. The prime reason is that big business still doesn’t see it as a priority. And comments like those reported won’t help.
Would you like to have a grown up conversation about this, or shall we use your blog to antagonise each other in an entirely pointless way?
You have my email address, and I’m more than happy to have a discussion with you on the phone or in person.
I’m sorry you feel antagonised but,as you pointed out on the Accessify Forum, the original comments were yours and, as a result, the article appeared to suggest that “accessibility specialists are a bunch of money-grabbing b***ards”
Imagine how antagonised many web accessibility specialists felt on reading it? Myself included. Yes – you have clarified your position to some extent and I do not doubt that you are trying to drive accessibility forwards but some of your remarks are still very generalised and could be viewed as accusations against an entire sector rather than some individuals.
Not all web accessibility specialists use WCAG checkpoints as some sort of ‘tick list’. Many (if not ‘all’) of my peers are only too keen to find out as much as they can about different user requirements – ideally from the users themselves. At times, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to work with the Shaw Trust’s User Testing Team and to have road-tested my own designs with disabled users. In each case, I’ve always tried to disseminate everything I’ve learnt to as wide an audience as possible. I seem to spend much of my time (some of it in this blog) talking about the ‘diverse audience’; warning other developers to be aware that different techniques have varying impacts on user groups, and generally advocating an inclusive, balanced, approach to accessible design.
I don’t think for one minute that I’m the only one who does this. The groups I’ve already mentioned all do the same.
As to continuing the discussion in private, the original comments are in the public domain, so I feel (without trying to deliberately antagonise anyone), that any ensuing discussion or clarification should also be public. After all, if there has been a public mis-representation, it’s the only method we have to try and correct it.