This is the automatically generated IRC log made by the logger bot from the Accessibility IRC chat at irc.freenode.net port 6667 channel #accessibility
You are here: Logs Home / 2007-02-02
11:50:34 <m3lgibs0n> sh1mmer, hows life at yahoo treating you this Friday?
11:50:52 <sh1mmer> scrum planning
11:51:05 <sh1mmer> currently in a 2+ hour meeting :)
11:51:31 <m3lgibs0n> I find they ussually take you more seriously when you don't IRC in meetings
11:51:31 <m3lgibs0n> but thats just me
11:55:00 <sh1mmer> I pay attension when some of this stuff is relevant to me
11:55:15 <sh1mmer> otherwise I do work
11:55:20 <sh1mmer> irc happens to be on all day
15:00:19 <m3lgibs0n> I have an interesting consideration about the business application of accessibility on the web, in terms of visually impared users, how many of them are likely to click an ad and generate revenue for a content provider, should they really be considered?
15:00:45 <sh1m> yes
15:00:48 <sh1m> sh1m is now known as sh1mmer
15:01:03 <sh1mmer> Tesco Access has made a killing
15:01:11 <sh1mmer> because everyone ignore the low income market
15:01:32 <sh1mmer> when tesco launched the site an entire community suddenly started using it
15:01:49 <sh1mmer> why muck about in shops when you can shop online without all the physical barriers
15:02:34 <m3lgibs0n> ok, but when that market is saturated, then is it still worthwhile? Surely it will cost more in terms of development to target that market as well as the mainstream
15:03:03 <sh1mmer> only if the developers are talentless fuckwits
15:03:16 <sh1mmer> Javascript != inaccessible
15:03:28 <m3lgibs0n> not talking about the developers, Im talking about the guys controlling the money
15:03:43 <sh1mmer> I guess I don't follow
15:06:19 <m3lgibs0n> well if we look at gmail for instance, we have two interfaces developed at the same time, which would (probably) increase development costs, at least from a time standpoint
15:06:57 <sh1mmer> no, they should just make one which doesn't suck
15:07:09 <m3lgibs0n> because as the front end gets more intuituve and dynamic, it becomes harder to implement a gracefull fallback without having to develop multiple interfaces
15:07:14 <sh1mmer> why is it only indy developers like Gez lemon who have worked out how to make AJAX work with screen readers?
15:07:16 <m3lgibs0n> lol
15:07:27 <m3lgibs0n> I like the fight in you
15:07:40 <sh1mmer> the accessibility community pisses me off
15:07:54 <sh1mmer> I spent enough time working on WCAG to be sick of a lot of em
15:08:32 <sh1mmer> I've been trying to get hold of demo copies of older screen readers to develop some techniques but I can't even get a reply for the AT vendors
15:09:43 <m3lgibs0n> do you guys hire visually impared devs?
15:11:28 <sh1mmer> yes
15:11:46 <sh1mmer> we hire good people
15:12:01 <sh1mmer> that's the requirement not anything else.
15:14:21 <m3lgibs0n> the best
15:14:24 <m3lgibs0n> :p
15:48:17 <m3lgibs0n> You're going to think I am a complete idiot for saying this, but I don't think complete accessibility is possible
15:48:37 <sh1mmer> no really
15:48:45 <m3lgibs0n> and its for the same reason that IT security is an impossible task
15:48:49 <sh1mmer> not really
15:49:08 <m3lgibs0n> the base compontents that make up the systems we use and develop further, never took it into account, or at least, not completely
15:49:55 <sh1mmer> Joe Clark said it well when talking about cognitive disability 'We can cope with no vision and no movement, there is no way to cope with no cognition'
15:50:20 <sh1mmer> At some level the tasks become so specific to the person we can't deal
15:50:31 <sh1mmer> at least for web development the buck stops at the user agents
15:51:33 <m3lgibs0n> which is lucky for people like us, since it makes the task easier, because we can say, well we did all we could do
15:51:41 <m3lgibs0n> but its still not "accessible"
16:10:38 <sh1mmer> well right. but it's a whole culture change
16:11:00 <sh1mmer> people have to draw the line and UA/AT vendors need to step up to the plate
16:11:34 <sh1mmer>http://www.kid666.com/blog/2007/01/11/inaccessible-web-site-it-may-not-be-entirely-your-fault/
16:11:43 <webben> Good grief... no wonder vision impaired users never seem to know keyboard shortcuts. Is it really necessary to have a page of MS Office keyboard shortcuts Ajaxified so badly that if you try and access it without JS you are redirected to the Office homepage.
16:12:07 <webben> and is not just ludicrous that I can't follow the Accessibility link in my browser?
16:12:08 <sh1mmer> ugh
16:12:18 <webben> maybe's it a Lynx bug
16:12:49 <m3lgibs0n> i'm all for someone else taking the responsibility
16:13:09 <m3lgibs0n> i want webdev to move to an area where its features that are the primary consideration on a new product
16:13:20 <m3lgibs0n> usability and accessibility aren't the same thing to me
16:15:46 <sh1mmer> m3lgibs0n: that's true
16:16:21 <sh1mmer> you accessibility removes barrier, you can have usability for aural browsers also
16:18:52 <m3lgibs0n> the web is still largely build by people with no access to any of these technologies however, and worse still, no interest
16:20:13 <sh1mmer> indeed.
16:20:41 <webben> I think the solution will have to come from free open source software. So long as it remains in the hands of expensive, closed-source, commercial software there will continue to be large tracts of the population without easy access to current tech.
16:20:54 <webben> Imagine if upgrading your browser cost $600.
16:21:17 <sh1mmer> webben: that's true, but part of the problem is the small market
16:21:41 <webben> sh1mmer, Very true. But open source does at least facilitate more code sharing.
16:21:42 <sh1mmer> and open source relies on enough good volunteers. even a megaproject like Mozilla/Firefox has issues with that
16:21:46 <sh1mmer> indeed
16:22:17 <webben> And when worst comes to worst, people can take matters into their own hands and fix their own software :)
16:25:40 <webben> sh1mmer, wrt to the volunteer issue, I quite like the open source bounty strategy for that reason.
16:26:04 <sh1mmer> webben: well you know me and my carrot vendor ideas
16:26:10 <sh1mmer> education could totally do that
16:26:17 <webben> Definitely :)
16:32:42 <m3lgibs0n> the solution is easy, its the same with everything, there needs to be a payoff
16:33:31 <m3lgibs0n> untill there is an advantage in making sites accessible, as in a functional payoff, people won't do anything because as far as joe average is concerned, the accessible market is always < 1% of thier userbase
16:34:12 <m3lgibs0n> thats why solutions like the dojotoolkit are doing so well, they say, hey look, you can plug in all these cool things into your site, easily, effectively, for free and theres a gracefull fallback
16:34:27 <m3lgibs0n> it encourages people to make the shift in mind set because they get something in return
16:37:04 <webben> When you follow a link from http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/keyboard.aspx in ELinks this is what you see: http://www.benjaminhawkeslewis.com/temp/accessibility-ms-style.png
16:38:50 <webben> yet http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/keyboard is fine
16:45:36 <webben> sh1mmer, You were looking for screen readers. I've been trying to organize http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screen_readers
16:45:44 <webben> It contains some I didn't know about.
16:46:14 <sh1mmer> yeah
16:46:14 <webben> Such as Virtual Vision, which is a Brazilian one.
16:46:18 <sh1mmer> we talked about that
16:46:30 <sh1mmer> right now I'm still trying to get a repsonse from the AT vendors
16:46:31 <webben> oh sorry, forgot I'd mentioned it you already
16:46:33 <sh1mmer> although I have a lead
16:46:37 <sh1mmer> via Joe Clark
16:46:49 <webben> ah good
16:50:31 <webben> it's always amazing how difficult it is to get the AT world talking to the web development world.
16:58:34 <m3lgibs0n> I should work in TV
16:58:49 <m3lgibs0n> then all I have to do is put a little dude in the corner of the screen and its all sorted
16:59:55 <webben> m3lgibs0n, You're forgetting captioning and audio description.
17:00:04 <webben> Oh and subtitling.
17:00:17 <m3lgibs0n> damn, they got to telly too
17:00:21 <webben> yep ;)
17:00:39 <webben> m3lgibs0n, Stone tablets are still free.
17:01:12 <m3lgibs0n> i cant be arsed for manual labour
17:02:37 <m3lgibs0n> we should pot all this money into making them see
17:04:33 <m3lgibs0n> it might sound insensitive but im sure they would like that beyer
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