[gui-talk] inaccessible software

[Hoffman, Allen]

I provide the following to give some of you who are asking questions
about "why" we have inaccessible software some context to understand.
Note, this is all my opinion, but this is how I see it after having
experienced the roles of disabled end-user, programmer, and
accessibility professional.
 
 
First of all, software engineers, or programmers are not required to
learn universal design as part of becoming certified as a professional.
Because of this, businesses hire folks who are certified, but they are
not qualified or skilled in producing products which are accessible for
people with disabilities without additional skills building.
 
Second, people with disabilities only are a fraction of the overall
audience for most products.  While the number fifty-four million people
with disabilities exist in the United States is used, they are not well
focused to boycott products, etc.  NFB and ACB have focused attention on
some issues when possible and have accomplished many successes-however I
see no progress on the first front.
 
Third, there is a lot of confusion within the assistive technology
industry about how to get vendors to make their products accessible.
Our large vendors often don't really integrate accessibility in to
product planning, design, development, testing, and support activities.
With such integration accessibility is by accident not intention.  
 
Fourth, no regular public measurement of these elements is available for
folks to know what progress is being made.  How many computer science
and other engineering schools offer and require universal design to
receive a degree?  How many major vendors integrate universal design in
to all phases of product life cycles?
 
So, education, demand, and regular measurement of these factors is
needed to really get us moved forward faster than current hit and miss
pace would allow.  Even in the open source community we have hit and
miss accessibility, and this is directly due to lack of education of
programmers.
 
If we don't teach new technical professionals that accessibility is part
of doing a professional job, teach vendors that accessibility is part of
delivering quality products, and teach ourselves to expect accessibility
and raise hell when it is not delivered, we will be in this same
position of asking folks to do what they should have forever.
 
So, individual programmers don't intentionally go out of their way to
make products inaccessible.  Often programmers rely upon the environment
their product fits in.  For example, if running under Windows, the .net
platform is what many make use of, and if that platform has
accessibility problems in the default usage, so will most products.
Even experienced coders have to do some head scratching to make
functionality fully accessible, and in the real world of deadlines and
profit margins, this is easily overlooked, and rarely considered a
go/no-go decision.  Most companies don't have centralized quality
assurance which includes accessibility testing, and to be frank, real
standardized accessibility testing is still in it's infancy, leaving a
lot of room for considering products to be accessible.
 
 
I recommend that advocacy organizations of people with disabilities
develop and publish strategic plans to address these systemic problems
from the macro to micro levels, and provide the stakeholders resources,
and firm encouragement to move forward, call out those who are not, and
praise those who are doing well.  A focus on ensuring our technicians
know their duties regarding people with disabilities, measuring
successes and failures, and banding together end-users who receive
inaccessible products to effect specific changes when needed seem to be
the components of a strategic plan.