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The accessibility is inaccessible
21.09.2006 | |
| Nice post title, isn't it? ;)
Since a couple of years ago I had the opportunity of having very interesting chats with very experienced people. I guess that's how I educated myself (as I didn't go to uni). When I was 18/19 for example I used to hang around with God/Ozone which was the first person that illustrated me how things can be different and he encouraged me to think about everything, Now I think that I really owe him a lot of how I am. Unfortunately I've no idea of where he is now.
And yesterday I had another opportunity like that one as I went to 'drink a couple' with Simon Whittaker (which, along Kerry Harper, is running Spring Digital) to a new pub/japanese bar around Marylebone (which btw is absolutely brilliant!!).
So, yeah, we were mainly trying to think -out of the box- about the business, which actually is a bit hard to do sometimes as you need to concentrate too much if you want to be up-to-date, and one of the most interesting things he said was that nowadays there is that hype about 'accessibility', following standards and blahblah... It was no more than a couple of sentences, which I'll extend a little bit now.
There is a lot of people defending it and always thinking about it. One of the problems of 'accessibility' is that it usually goes back 10years, in a way that if you wanted to do a COOL website, you would say, ok, let's see what we can do with flash... oh wait! flash is not accessible, right, let's do it in HTML then... oh, but now we can't have those nice panels moving anymore. Oh well, but it's accessible! thousands of people would be able to access it! even from a washing machine!
Thousands of people? Do you think that thousands of people would like to see a boring website like this one? Ok, let's create an hypothetic case and put some numbers to make it more clear.
We have 100 possible users, 75 of them have flash. The comparison would be something like that:
Accessible website
100 possible users, however only 25 users went to the site and they didn't told to their friends because it was just plain, and well... just another site...
Flash website
75 possible users, 65 users went to the site because a friend of them told them it was so cool.
Now, you have to think that if you do an e-shop for a client. The client ONLY WANTS TO SELL MORE. And using the numbers from the example, it's probably more likely that the client will sell more with the flash website than with the accessible website. So, as you can see, the accessible site ends up being the less accessible site :D (for the client)
Do you want an example now? I'll tell you one which isn't even done with Flash! Here you have!
It's not accessible, but, who cares? It's doing the business it's supposed to do, and a clear example is that I'm sharing the link with you ;) | | posted by ricardo cabello at 05:13 | | 17 comments written so far |
| And before you say it... no, I'm not saying that Flash websites are ALWAYS better than an accesible website, it just depends on the type of project.
| posted by mr.doob
21.09.2006 , 05:42 |
|
| I 100% agree with you. I've had these kind of debates for ages :-)
| posted by Jcl
21.09.2006 , 06:49 |
|
| It all gets reduced to something very simple: making things easier for your target. That's what accessibility is about, not about a long list of standards which need to be validated in order to stick a "WAI 3 compliant" in the front page.
Obviously going through the standards is the way to get a page which is reachable by lots of people.
And do not think only of blind/deaf people as the ones requiring "plain boring html pages". There's also lots of people which use glasses (like my mum, or yours) and would love to be able to increase the size of the texts of some flash e-shops. As they can't see it they just close the window and go traditional shopping.
There's also people with learning disabilities, which can't understand some of the concepts that sometimes involve the flash catalogs. Or people with mobility disabilities (try to browse one of those flash catalogs using just 3 fingers and one eye closed, and try to click the fading moving buttons/layers).
It's not easy for them - they can't access the content.
I could continue but I think you got the point.
But, if you have a very specific target, you can risk as much as you can, knowing your target now is much narrower - don't expect super big figures in that case.
And definitely every public site should be absolutely accessible. They do not have any other alternative than making easier for the citizens the access to their information.
| posted by sole
21.09.2006 , 07:24 |
|
| That's exactly what I'm talking about. If you make a website accessible to people with problems.
Well, that will sound really bad, but luckily the amount of these people is not to high. Which commercially means that is a very low proportion of you possible amount of users.
In this case, someone blind/deaf is like someone without flash.
And if you're doing a website for, I don't know, a VJ software. Why should it be accessible for blind/deaf people?
I don't like how all this sound, but unfortunately this is how I think it is.
| posted by mr.doob
21.09.2006 , 07:33 |
|
| Where are the new collectives who fight agains the bad biz who don't care of the disabled people?? I see a "Who care about the children" applied to the digital world.
| posted by marc palau
21.09.2006 , 07:53 |
|
| It would be interesting to see something like an association for the good of deaf people sueing Nike because it's latest website isn't accessible for deaf people.
Why a deaf guy will like to buy Nike anyway? (Again, I don't like how this sounds!!)
Another example of in another way of explaining would be like writting my website in catalan instead. I could even write it in 3 languages, so it would be accessible for even more people! But I don't have time for that and the content would decrease a lot.
| posted by mr.doob
21.09.2006 , 08:02 |
|
| I'll show you another example. Some days ago I was having a look at some online shops, since I am looking for certain clothes and I didn't feel like going to the real shops, fighting with the queues, the people etc.
There were some shops whose catalog was made just in flash, for example H&M. I just was able to stay in H&M shop for 1 minute - I got so desperate with all the fade in fade out transition in transition out that I really couldn't browse the site, so I haven't seen their catalog and they have lost a potential client.
There were also other shops whose catalog had a nice design - simple, explanative and well categorised. Like M&S. In 5 minutes, I saw the catalog and decided there were some interesting items, and discarded the ones I didn't like. That means I could access the information quick and easily - something I couldn't do with H&M, where I discarded their whole range of products.
This is an example of what I told you: easier and accessible websites are a good way of selling more. Make it complicated and lose clients (or do not get new clients).
| posted by sole
21.09.2006 , 08:35 |
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| yes man, you can do it, but now your doing to me a favor, cose I'm reading in English and I'm learning it.
The main problem of the accesibility is for the people who don't have a computer, that's a heavy rock on our way!
Other things are just "ball-touching" (touching the testicles dude!)
| posted by marc palau
21.09.2006 , 08:37 |
|
| But u're talking about a website that was done in flash for the sake of it. Like the people that does accessible site for the sake of it.
I'm not saying that accessible websites are bad! I'm just saying that some times the developer makes the designer don't sell the client how it could be.
Sometimes a client would love to have the products in something better than squared images!
Even argos catalogue layout has better style than amazon!
| posted by mr.doob
21.09.2006 , 08:41 |
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| From my humble experience, as I don't really work developing websites although I know how to make them, when I am surfing I don't want to enjoy neither the interactivity of the site, nor its beauty, nor the way it is accesible or not.
Potencial users seem to see things different than me or just do the same? I mean, when you go to a supermarket, you spend some time viewing the beauty of the building or the different ways the products are placed? I think this is how it works on the internet either. Other matter are the casual users, bored, with tons of time to spend, that uses to waste his/her life in front of the screen watching for those things. These are my two cents.
| posted by jon
21.09.2006 , 09:05 |
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| And also, there is that problem of people that when you talk them about Flash, they only think about flashing things and stupid flash sites ;)
| posted by mr.doob
21.09.2006 , 09:33 |
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| I think you misunderstood me. I do not think about all those flashing things or stupid flash sites. Those adjectives came out of your mind.
What I meant is that I don't like a website where the continent is more relevant than its content. I do look for contents, not beautiful continents. And I really do like the good flash sites where the content dignifies the continent, but not when is the continent the one who dignifies the bad or mediocre content.
| posted by jon
21.09.2006 , 10:58 |
|
| Son las 6 y media de la tarde de un viernes... sigo en el trabajo... he acabado 1 intranet y estoy arreglando bugs, a parte de cambiar el diseño de una aplicación web y comerme el coco de como montar la plantilla de otro en html....
Ejm... como que paso de calentarme más la cabeza
XDDDDD
| posted by humphr3y
22.09.2006 , 16:27 |
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| i think it depends a lot on the content. your example of a vj site is a good one. for something like that going through all the trouble to make it viewable on a washing machine is a waste of time. :)
i found it interesting that on that gucci site if you increase or decrease font size in the browser the flash text size changes. that's a nice thing i didn't realize flash could do.
| posted by anonymous
23.09.2006 , 03:08 |
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| I'm afraid I have to disagree with you, you probably already know my opinions on the matter. It's quite difficult to not flat out say 'you're wrong'.
Leaving aside the growing legal constraints that require good accessibility, I can't help but look at the issue on a moral ground.
Whenever you make a decision not to make your site accessible to a particular group (Be it the visually impaired, those on slow connections, alternative devices, poor cognitive skills, etc) you are essentially "We do not want or need you, fuck off"
Yes some sites by the nature of their content exclude some users, but these tend to be extreme cases.
Accessibility is so often looked at as just making sites work for screen readers, for blind people who are a fraction of the web audience and that it is a binary thing, your site is accessible or not.
This is a misconception that many people still struggle with. Accessibility is a wide spectrum, both in terms of the people accessibility applies to (Hint, everyone. People and machines) and just how accessible a site will be (Hint, never perfect).
As much as I agree to a point with you about the “wow†factor of a site, and people thinking it’s cool (And this certainly has business value), I do not agree that it is worth ignoring a section of your audience that you deem not worth the trouble.
As people are coming to understand this doesn’t just mean blind people and a fraction of the market, but those with a wide array of disabilities and impairments, not to mention search engines and of course legal ramifications. Having a cool brand because of your swish website can be counteracted by ignoring sizable sections of your users and the negative opinion this can generate.
I think the main point I want to make, and hopefully that you won’t take this personally, is that saying ‘accessibility is a bad thing’, or criticizing it the way you have, shows a real misunderstanding of what accessibility means in modern web development.
| posted by David Singleton
25.09.2006 , 14:14 |
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| Yeah, I agree with you, but what I'm saying is that in some cases, some websites, the accessibility is worthless.
And we tend to make all websites accessible, without thinking if it REALLY needs to be like that.
| posted by mr.doob
25.09.2006 , 14:18 |
|
SORRY!
Is not that I don't care about what you have to say, of course I do, but they are speaking louder and I lost my patience :(
|
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