[thelist] the use of lynx

martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com
Wed Feb 27 05:41:01 CST 2002


Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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>> How is it unsavory?  It's called business
>> reality.  Before I emailed those
>> stats out, my site had less than 1/2 of 1% using
>> a non IE5+ or Mozilla4+
>> browser.  One of the first questions we ask when
>> we go into a scoping
>> meeting with a client is related to target
>> browsers.  We give the %.  We
>> state the facts.  They say what do we lose by
>> catering to that 1/2 of 1%?

>Hmmm, well if your client's site is in Australia, and 1 of
>that 1/2 of 1% is visually impaired, they lose heaps when
>that user sues for discrimination.  Ask the Sydney Olympics
>organising committee - it happened to them.

Cost them AU$20k in fines and a vast reputation hit, particularly
for the Paralympics. AOL made an out of court settlement of US$1m
and agreed to redevelop their software (cost: maybe five times that)
as a result of a similar case. No test cases in the UK so far, although
the most likely candidates are all redesigning to be accessible
as a result of the UK legislation (which carries the promise of unlimited
fines and requirements to redevelop to become accessible).

In the UK, the legally accepted interpretation so far is that if you obey
all the WAI priority 1 recommendations and show efforts to comply
with the rest, you won't get sued.

Obeying primary legislation is usually good business sense.

Cheers
Martin



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