Over the course of my life, I’ve had a lot of personal exposure to blind, visually impaired, low-vision, hearing impaired, “mobility-impaired” and learning disabled individuals. Over the past decade or so, I’ve had to watch a number of these people confront the computer and manage, as best they could, with taking advantage of all this technology has to offer. It was a struggle for some more than others, but all have come to terms with the computer in their own way. For example, one woman I know who has low vision (almost completely blind) has a lot more trouble using a computer and the web than a friend who is hearing impaired. However, she has software that reads the text on the screen (a screen reader) and an overlay over the key board that allows her to locate the letters better. In her own way, she has found peace with the computer, making due with few complaints. This is the common thread that I’ve witnessed. Like so many hardships that people with handicaps (I’m using this term broadly here) encounter in life, the computer is just one more that they need to find “workarounds” for, whether it’s through a screen reader or some lesser piece of technology. As Joe Clark states, the “disability is never the problem; it’s barriers in the outside world, including barriers of attitude, that are the problem.” Many of the handicapped individuals I’ve know have an attitude that they can either wallow in the hardship or go do the best they can with the resources and technologies available to them to achieve their goals. Fortunately, most have chosen the latter and, fortunately, the resources available which assist with computer and web access have improved over the past decade. Will there be gaps in the accessibility to computers and the web? Sure. But, again, I believe it’s attitude and perseverance, as well as coding and equipment, that gets the person through.
Among the readings, I liked Joe Clark’s the least and Mark Pilgrim and Paul Bohman’s the best. While Clark's was interesting and informing in many ways, there was a condescending attitude that bled through his writing that tended to detract from his message of how disabled people use computers. Telling his readers that they can be “wrong, misinformed or misguided” in their approach to the disabled, or phrases such as “Now that you know a bit more about disability in general…” are less than productive. Thank you Mr. Clark for enlightening us. I’ll leave it at that.
Pilgrim’s writing was very helpful, particularly his “Tips by Design Principle” page where he gives examples and code to make web sites more “Perceivable, Operable, Navigable, Understandable and Robust.” Day 12 – Using Color Safely and Day 16 – Not Opening New Windows were especially interesting to me because they demonstrate how two simple issues – the color of a link and the importance of being able to use the back arrow on a browser – can hinder a disabled person ability to use the web if not coded properly and, therefore, are important for web designers to keep in mind. The code he provides in all his examples is very useful. Likewise, Bohman’s writing was interesting for the unique CSS coding used to hide content.
The book was written for a developer who might know a bit about the Web and was being dragged, perhaps kicking and screaming, towards accessibility. Hence a position of negligible advance knowledge and moderate hostility was assumed.
Nonetheless, if you think *that* is the only case in which I was being condescending, you need to read me more.
Posted by: Joe Clark | March 25, 2008 at 11:29 AM