[Irl-dean] Accessibility in the future

[Mark Magennis]

Like Barry, the claims about the costs of accessibility don't sit well  
with me.

On the one hand, the author says:

> the greater the quantity of information, the lower its cost of  
> production; and ... the greater is the additional percentage cost of  
> making it accessible.

then later he says:

> the smaller the player, the higher the relative percentage cost of  
> accessibility services will become.

so he appears to be saying that big operators will face higher  
relative costs because they produce a lot of information and smaller  
operators will face higher relative costs because they are small and  
don't do much. This seems to be contradictory unless I've  
misunderstood something.

Also, I'm not sure that it will remain more difficult for smaller  
players to achieve accessibility. Take the situation with websites.  
The vast majority of websites are commissioned by SMEs and built by  
small operators using standard tools and techniques. If these standard  
tools and techniques can be accessified then everything that results  
from them will be accessible. That's a big if, but the promotion of  
Universal Design awareness and skills as well as the adherence of  
authoring tools to accessibility guidelines would go a long way in  
this respect.

Mark

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