I'm chiming in late, so rather than try to answer direct points, here are a few of my own.
First, the Accessiblity Technology industry is made of up very small companies, usually focusing on specific types of disability, including some very specialized mobility/dexterity solutions. You can learn more about these businesses here: http://www.atia.org/ One of the challenges of being such small companies is that it has historically been difficult to both keep up with multiple platforms AND pay the fees required to be a preferred developer. To their credit, companies like Microsoft have finally moved to be more inclusive, and are often allowing AT developers to join in their pre-release programs for free. Other large software vendors often fund the updating of tools to work with their new releases. But the biggest challenge I see is that the AT connectivitity has to be hand crafted for each platform AND application. An API or consensus standard would go a long way to making it easier for apps, platforms and AT to stay in sync. This is, frankly, a place where government could play an important role, nurturing and encouraging the effort. The barriers seem to be many: it's expense (in time, and sometimes membership fees) to participate in standards (that locks out many AT vendors). Companies may not want a standard on that old "discourages innovation" chesnut, or simply because they don't see it as a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, this leaves users out in the cold. And one problem for users is that AT is often expensive. JAWS, one of the popular screen readers costs ~$1500. (When you think about that, consider how much you paid for your browser). And, that's just one tools needed for independent living, for a population that struggles with employment. There's also a steeper learning curve, so the barriers to updating are also higher. We might also ask why our Web development tools don't do a better job of helping us design and build accessible sites and other apps. They do have a mass market, and could do a lot to make accessibility a matter of course, instead of an extra burden. There is a large marketplace there, and those are tools built by large companies with the resources to do more (acknowledging there the amount they have done). The irony is that designing to web standards, and thinking about designing for multiple "user agents" (as the WAI calls the collection of browser platforms) also solves many accessibility issues. One approach, from both the WAI and the 508 Refresh Committee, is to set standards for what a content format must include to support/make possible accessible design, as well as some requirements for the capabilities authoring tools should have. These draft guidelines have focused on "capabilities" not implementation, leaving companies free to find innovative ways to author accessibly. Finally, consider how you would feel if the next version of your favorite tool was suddenly changed in a way that made it impossible for you to use. I'm not talking about preference, ease of use or usability, but outright barriers. I was part of a discusssion of accessibility of virtual worlds like Second Life, for people who "browse with their ears". It turned out that the first problem wasn't even in Second Life itself. It was that the login page was designed inaccessibly. People using a screen reader couldn't even get into the worlds to find out if they could use them or not. Nothing special, new or difficult. Just a login screen. But just as much a barrier as any locked door. Whitney -- Whitney Quesenbery www.wqusability.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
