… a reasonable level of accessibility

Ah that’s the thing isn’t it?

I think that many people seem to think that making sites reasonably accessible is impossibly hard and therefore they don’t bother at all. The concept of “reasonable” seems to escape them completely.

I don’t think there’s any such thing as 100% accessibility - but we can do our best to do what we can. If it’s really unreasonable to make a particular element of a site accessible (for argument’s sake) then, ok - do what you can around it, offer alternatives if possible, show willing and understanding of the issues involved. But so many just do nothing at all.

Webdesigners are, mostly, young people and so are not, on the whole, affected by accessibility issues in the same way that the average (older) population is. That is, designers are on average much less likely to have accessibility issues than the people they’re designing for. I think we’ll see a change as the average age of webdesigners increases, but I’m hoping it’s not going to take that long to achieve greater accessibility.

I’m afraid to say though that the sad fact is that there always going to be some who miss the point entirely. Some do “the right thing” because it’s the right thing to do. Some don’t through lack of knowledge, but they’re willing to learn. But some (and they’re the ones who in general are thoughtless and make assumptions about what it means to be disabled offline too), are sadly never going to get it - at least any time in the near future. There will always be designers/developers who don’t care. What the answer is, I don’t know. As my mum always says, you don’t have to get hit by a bus to know it’ll hurt, but there are some things in life you have to experience (look ma, you’re famous!). Sadly there are those though who’ll only realise the importance of accessibility and the error of their ways too late. Their “disability” of a lack of understanding and empathy is perhaps the greatest sadness. They have the power to make a change and make a difference, but choose not to exercise that choice.

Hello Wombley’s mum.

I’ll post more about this later in a full item but for now I’ll just remark on the change in the way people interact with me.

I don’t need a wheelchair. I don’t need any aids. I occasionally fall over if I’m not concentrating properly on my balance. I don’t, as far as I’m aware have Progressive MS so the symptoms come and go. For all intents and purposes I’m the same as I always was but the instant I say I have MS I get one of two reactions.

Either I’m told that they too have MS and have had for years and not to worry about it, or, in the case of family, friends and acquaintances, their world collapses. They ring me up and speak in hushed tones. Half assume I’ve just become an imbecile and need to have everything explained very slowly and in detail, the other half seem to assume I can take an Aspirin and be better by next week.

I’m beginning to see that a large part of disability is not having to deal with your disease, it’s having to deal with other people’s perceptions of it.