Pat’s presentation provided the audience with some pretty astonishing facts and figures concerning the market for alternative formats and the shocking lack of supply. The one that stood out most for me was that between 1999 and 2003, only 4.4% of title published were also published in an alternative format. If that weren’t bad enough, that’s across all possible alternative formats, so if you wanted something in giant print, it wasn’t even as big as 4.4% of titles.
She went on to encourage buyers of materials to consult their users but I started to take note when she began to discuss the Internet as I don’t purchase materials but I do maintain a Web presence. Now, our site is pretty poor from an accessibility perspective. I have managed to get our e-newsletter to comply with the WCAG 1.0 (opens in new window) double-A criteria but the website has more stakeholders and so doesn’t conform even to single-A. And it would seem that we aren’t alone. 81% of sites are not fully accessible and 97% do not even meet minimum requirements. In the information age where the Internet plays such a central role both at work and at home, it isn’t surprising that 40% of people who become partially sighted or blind have to give up on their hobbies.
It was an interesting presentation with a good message but it shared a session with John Pateman’s and unfortunately, based on the questions asked of the two presenters afterwards, it looks like the audience was thinking more about John’s speech. I hope that I’m wrong about that.
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