At the SCIP event last month, the group leader asked the community organisations if they had any specific problems they wanted addressing.
“Accessibility,” said one man. “What do you mean?” “You know, blind people, that kind of thing.”
Ian shifted in his chair, and then spoke. “Do you have a problem with the site? Are people coming to you, complaining that they can’t access it?”
They weren’t, and a conversation developed. What kind of people visit the site? For what? It’s a radio website, so would partially-sighted people be coming through the site, or through streaming players, or iTunes? Is there any evidence of people using screen readers to reach the site?
How useful is it to focus on blind people when we think about accessibility?
Not everyone sees things the way you do
For us, accessibility is a broader concept. It’s about all the different ways people might want to access your site. If you have events, will people want to view them on the move? Do you need some mobile pages?
Is there lots of good information on your site? Will people be wanting to print it out? If so, you should have good print stylesheets to make the printed pages look good and not waste paper.
I like to use a computer-based calendar. I don’t want to visit your website to find out about new events. Can I subscribe to your calendar?
And what about news? I like to read mine as email. Can I get news from your site through email?
This is accessibility. Making sure your site is accessible to all your users in the way they want to interact with it. And that means blind people with screen readers. But it also means a great deal more.
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