[thelist] Is this a list?

[Jeff Howden]

Shawn,

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> From: Shawn K. Quinn
> 
> And rarely, if ever, does the Web site author/designer
> know which sites these are.
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Actually, if the author/designer *doesn't* know, then they haven't done a
good enough job determining the target audience.  Moreover, some sites,
there is simply zero benefit to offset the cost of making them accessible.

Whatever happened to "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for
any reason"??

If you run a Linux users forum and don't want anyone using Windows to access
it.  Well, that's your perogative.  If I sell high performance aftermarket
car parts and I don't want to go to the extra expense to accommodate the
visually impaired, that's my choice.  If my competitor is, then I guess we
know where those people are going.  Or, maybe my competitor has higher
prices so those who I'm not willing to accommodate on the web are willing to
make a phone call to order the stuff they need/ask any questions they have
instead.  If my state allows smoking in restaurants, but I decide that I
won't allow it in mine, yup, you guessed it, that's my choice.

The only wrinkle in that is when the law stipulates a certain level of
accessibility.

The reality is that no matter what, someone, somewhere, on something or
other platform and/or browser with or without some sort of disability or
handicap, perhaps in another country or who even speaks an entirely
different language isn't going to be able to access the information.  The
trick is reducing that number to capture as much of the profitable audience
as possible while purposely excluding as few of the balance of that audience
as possible.

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> Inaccessibility blows up in your face when you least
> expect it. Those sites with stupid pixel font GIFs for
> text may well not be readable or usable by the people
> that made them after a decade of squinting.
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Especially considering the bulk of them are nearly a decade old.  Besides,
most of the "designers" doing it claim it's art.  Fine, that's their right.
It's also my right to think they're snobbish and irresponsible.

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> > If I build a website for myself, say, a blog where I
> > jot notes to me, for my own personal use, which I
> > never intend to be used by anyone else for any reason,
> > does *not* have to be accessible to anyone but me.
> 
> That, however, isn't really a Web site, in fact, if I
> read you right, it isn't something that even *should*
> be visible to anyone that can stumble across your open
> port 80, in fact, it should be accessible to exactly
> one user (you) after passing HTTP authentication.
> 
> Keeping notes for yourself in HTML is one thing. Making
> World Wide Web sites is another entirely.
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You know, it really doesn't matter if access is restricted by authentication
or not.  All that matters is that there's an HTTP server involved, some HTML
documents, and some traffic between that server and a browser to determine
if there's a website or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website

I doubt you'll find any educated sources that would agree with your opinion
on the matter.

 [>] Jeff Howden
     jeff at jeffhowden.com
     http://jeffhowden.com/