Designing for Accessibility
First off let me say that this subject doesn't get nearly enough attention. I hold no false hopes that this post will inspire designer, developers, and would be technoligist, to take up arms and fight for this cause. This is truly and absolutely a social issue.
As an American society we put less value on the lives of the less able. So it's no superise that the technology we create puts the disabled at a further and further disadvantage. This post is not for society at large and to be honest if you don't believe that there is a problem then nothing you read will ever change your mind. However for those of you who have seen the disadvantage and divide, for you would be designer and technologist, I have a story for you. It is one I know you can relate to. The story goes, People are born everyday, they grow up and life happen to them, they grow old, and most lose their independence, and then eventually they die. See I told you, you could relate. Just incase that story wasn't enough here are some statistics: The U.S. Census Bureau, calulated 56.7 million people in the united states are disabled, around 70 percent of those people are over the age of 65. So lets recap here. We all grow old and statistically speaking we have a 1/5 chance of aquiring a diablity after age 65. So accessible design is not only benefical, dare I say it's essential. I know your aren't yet convinced but I have more numbers for you. don't worry you don't have to take it from me.
...in a survey of twenty-five award winning companies who produce pre-college instructional software, only two of the nineteen that responded indicated they were aware of accessibility issues. Sixty-five percent of the remaining seventeen companies were not aware of accessibility as an issue, 100% were not currently addressing accessibility in their product development, and 88% had no plans to address accessibility in the future (Golden, 2001).
There are roughly 21 million people between the ages of 15-24 who use or need pre-college software. What all these numbers are saying is that there is a huge amount of profit companies are letting slip by because they do not invest the time in development accessible software. But the gap they expose is the one we can fill as new developers we can enourage the use of accessible technologies and in the process increase our own networth. Accessible software is not only benefical for the the disabled but also for the abled, because the principles behind it's design effect every person, things like contrast, hit area, usablity options. As one article said designing for accessiblity doesn't mean you have to make multilpe products, just one have to make one product that works for everyone. It doesn't have to be boring plain black and white text. below are some resources to enable you to fine to your designs and make them just that little bit more accessible. if you want to see this in practice Web Accessibility has a success stories section you can find links to websites that have adopted these design principles.
resources: