I hear that many of you are uninterested in doing the work required here. Allow me to offer a couple arguments in favor of taking accessibility seriously:
1. Disability is a spectrum, not a condition, and a temporal, not a terminal state. Ever get your eyes dilated? Ever break your foot? Ever try using most common devices with a baby in your hands? Ever needed to watch a video in a loud room, or a place in which you cannot use headphones? Ever try using a laptop outside on a sunny day? Ever try getting old?
2. 26% of all adults in the US have some form of disability. 10% of these are sensory (hearing/sight). Are you really telling me you're just ignoring 26% of the population?
3. We are well-paid professionals being asked to make our tools usable by the entire public, not just a subset of it - we're making an average of 2-5x the median income, presumably based on our professionalism, knowledge of our craft, and ability to do hard things.
4. It's the right thing to do, both morally and practically. It allows every person to participate in society, allows us to leverage the full skills and abilities of every available human, and doesn't give us an "out" to start excluding people because we're too lazy to consider their needs.
5. If none of that sways you: some day you too will need this, if for no other reason than you've gotten old. It'll be nice to live in a world in which the people we are today are willing to take care of the people we'll be some day.
1. Disability is a spectrum, not a condition, and a temporal, not a terminal state. Ever get your eyes dilated? Ever break your foot? Ever try using most common devices with a baby in your hands? Ever needed to watch a video in a loud room, or a place in which you cannot use headphones? Ever try using a laptop outside on a sunny day? Ever try getting old?
2. 26% of all adults in the US have some form of disability. 10% of these are sensory (hearing/sight). Are you really telling me you're just ignoring 26% of the population?
3. We are well-paid professionals being asked to make our tools usable by the entire public, not just a subset of it - we're making an average of 2-5x the median income, presumably based on our professionalism, knowledge of our craft, and ability to do hard things.
4. It's the right thing to do, both morally and practically. It allows every person to participate in society, allows us to leverage the full skills and abilities of every available human, and doesn't give us an "out" to start excluding people because we're too lazy to consider their needs.
5. If none of that sways you: some day you too will need this, if for no other reason than you've gotten old. It'll be nice to live in a world in which the people we are today are willing to take care of the people we'll be some day.