Comments on: We need to have a talk with marketing

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:08:14 +0000

It’s definitely true that marketers traditionally work to appeal to visual senses. However, in the world of web marketing, there’s a huge element which boils down to getting things right in the source code: what we really need to educate on is yes, how this is good business sense but also how important it is to make use of certain basic issues (such as keyboard focus), which can have a huge impact on accessibility at incredibly little effort.

If the underlying best practices for web marketing were able to assume the fundamentals of web accessibility — which they should be able to do — the web could become a far more accessible place.

By: Suzanne Erb, M.S.

Suzanne Erb, M.S. — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:49:35 +0000

Unfortunately, marketers appeal to the sense by which most people gather their information: sight. Whether we’re discussing a window display or a website, I think that marketers are focused primarily on visual presentation. So much can be done with the camera to create interesting visual effects,for a very low price, and I think we need to educate them about how accessible web design just makes good business sense.

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:28:48 +0000

It’s sometimes an illusion to think that our decisions are based on abstract principles rather than on human experience. As much as people may have great intentions, I feel that decision making frequently comes more from actual experiences — confrontation is a powerful decision-leading experience.

Thanks for your comment!

By: Luke McGrath

Luke McGrath — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 09:40:26 +0000

Great post Joe, I think this is key:

“Is it partially because the physical environment of a store forces the business owner to directly confront the visitor with disabilities whom they have disenfranchised, an experience which doesn’t exist online?”

No marketing agency in their right mind would suggest anything other than inclusive tactics in the physical world, same goes for shop designers. If they did, the law would be down on them immediately.