Well, I had an interesting conversation today with a Website Marketing type person…Me: “So, now that we are building lots of Web apps using rich media, and technologies like Flash, I was wondering where we stand on accessibility? It looks like its going to become more of a legal issue now that precedent has been set in the US with Target. Where does accessibility figure in our strategy for 2007 and beyond?”Marketer: “You mean availability?”Me: “No, accessibility - ensuring our site is accessible across different browsers, and regardless of things such as disabilities, so we don’t discriminate against our customers in the online services we offer”Marketer: “Oh, I get ya. Good question… Really good question. Well at the moment we have a few pages in Spanish and Chinese, the problem is we have to go off and create them separately, and its a pain to keep them updated. A colleague mentioned the Target thing the other week, I should have really found out more, but I suppose accessibility isn’t our highest priority compared to something like user experience.”Me: “Oookay….”I’ll leave the reader to draw their own interpretations.Well, I had an interesting conversation today with a Website Marketing type person…Me: “So, now that we are building lots of Web apps using rich media, and technologies like Flash, I was wondering where we stand on accessibility? It looks like its going to become more of a legal issue now that precedent has been set in the US with Target. Where does accessibility figure in our strategy for 2007 and beyond?”Marketer: “You mean availability?”Me: “No, accessibility - ensuring our site is accessible across different browsers, and regardless of things such as disabilities, so we don’t discriminate against our customers in the online services we offer”Marketer: “Oh, I get ya. Good question… Really good question. Well at the moment we have a few pages in Spanish and Chinese, the problem is we have to go off and create them separately, and its a pain to keep them updated. A colleague mentioned the Target thing the other week, I should have really found out more, but I suppose accessibility isn’t our highest priority compared to something like user experience.”Me: “Oookay….”I’ll leave the reader to draw their own interpretations.
Tags: accessibility