I Don’t Care About Blind People
Friday, October 26th, 2007
That’s a provocative title but that’s the way I hear it when someone stands up and says “I don’t care about blind people!” - seriously?
Me? I actually do care about blind people AND poor people AND those with limited literacy AND people born overseas. I care first because its a moral issue. The moral issue is that everyone, to the best of my current ability, deserves to be able to access the web sites I’m involved in building.
I care second because I have a legal obligation to develop web sites which comply with WCAG 1.0, the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Anti Discrimination Act 1998. I am also aware there is a global progression toward regulations for accessibility (for example section 508 in the United States) and similar laws through Europe. Look at Bruce McGuire versus SOCOG in Australia and recently the class action against Target overseas.
Finally I care because blind people, disabled people and EVERY people are potential customers or receivers of my marketing message. My client’s marketing message! Bums on seats and hopefully sales conversions or successful dissemination of information. Oh and Google indexing is handy!
I don’t particularly care if you are making a personal blog - tiny text your wingnuts clockwise! Blink until you get arrested for actual bodily harm!
I DO CARE if you are a business, a service or a government body. If you still stand in front of me and say “I Don’t Care About Blind People” - either morally, legally or economically - then its entirely your choice. But usually your reason turns out to be either ignorance or laziness - either you don’t know how to achieve accessibility or its too difficult for you to bother.
