Robin Christopherson (Head of Web Accessibility) at AbilityNet told me today that 45% of web access issues for disabled users (in research for DRC 2004) were not violations of an (earlier) standard.
From many “experts” I’m hearing that the user voice is key.
There is a useful clip on you-tube to give some insight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2VVxrWun6A
And I’ve begun asking some disabled people to give specific feedback on sites they encounter to give a sample of examples.
I’m working this into a “roadmap” to map out ways forwards for Fix the Web.. there are lots of potential. It’s essentially about asking good questions and understanding how you get good answers the numbers of interested people is growing with some brilliant complementary expertise. Quite exciting!
It seems that the “cake” of Fix the Web may be about creating a simpler process for disabled users to report issues, which could then be owned and processed by a cadre of volunteers. This could mean disabled people report more issues but don’t have to deal with the process. The volunteers would have their knowledge improved as would the people (web developers / site owners essentially) that they report back to. But the effort is taken away from disabled people.
Fix the Web 