Maximum Access: Missing Markets in Digital Media

Tom Campbell reports on an NMK seminar in April 2001.

Panellists:

• Julie Howell
• Kevin Carey
• Mike Teasdale
• Chair: Ben Morley

The topic of this evening seminar was how new media producers can work to make their interactive products experienced and better enjoyed by wider sections of society, especially those which tend to be over-looked by producers and designers. An audience of new media professionals and those from non-profit organisations listened to a panel of speakers experienced in usability and accessibility issues, and took part in a lively and wide-reaching discussion chaired by Ben Morley.

Julie Howell, Campaigns Officer for the RNIB, set the frank and positive tone for the evening by announcing in her presentation that she suffered from Multiple Sclerosis, and, as such, had a number of highly specific needs. Urging website producers to �get personal with me�, Julie explained that she wanted interactive products which appreciated her individuality, responded to her needs and allowed her to take control.

Julie moved from the personal to the more general, and provided sound business reasons for why producers should take her needs seriously. In the UK at the moment there are estimated to be some two million customers with sight problems, more than 10 million older customers and 8.5 million disabled customers. When you consider that the government�s E-Envoy office intends for everyone to be online by 2005, these figures represent a serious market for online products and services.

For new media producers and website owners, there were also legal issues that needed addressing. Although no case involving a website had yet to be heard in the UK under the terms of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, there remained the distinct possibility that a website could find itself facing punitive action. There have already been some high-profile precedences elsewhere, notably the successful case brought against the official website of the Sydney Olympic Games for failing to provide a service to disabled members of society.

But Julie made it clear that a confrontational approach between campaigners and producers was not what she wanted. A set of accessibility guidelines for web producers was now available (www.w3.org/wai) and the RNIB had produced a free website, video and report to help professionals make more accessible online products. Julie emphasised that those with impairments did not wish to hold creative designers back, but instead urged them to �take us with you� and create inspirational and imaginative work that all members of society can use and enjoy.

Following on from Julie, Kevin Carey, Director of HumanITy, forcefully made the business case for media producers to consider the surprisingly large �missing markets� which so far they were failing to address. These markets included the quarter of the population insufficiently literate enough to use many textual interfaces, those with visual and hearing problems, those with physical and cognitive disabilities, and those sections of society which were culturally very different and unable to appreciate or fully understand the nature of much internet content. Marshalling an impressive array of figures from a variety of official sources, Kevin was able to demonstrate that a startling half of the UK�s population cannot use websites in the way that their producers intended.

Kevin reminded the audience that disability is a continuum rather a precise condition and most of those missing out were suffering from mild impairments, which could be quite easily addressed by more considerate designers and producers. This mildly-impaired section of society represented an enormous missing market, with individuals tending to have large disposable incomes and a huge collective spending power. For Kevin, therefore, producers should consider accessibility issues not as an act of philanthropy, but because of their direct impact on a company�s bottom line.

Mike Teasdale, consultant with new media agency Answerthink, examined accessibility in relation to the more general issue of usability. In an entertaining and persuasive talk, Mike demonstrated that by putting the needs of the user first, producers are able to create more effective and successful online products.

Mike showed that many of the features commonly found on websites and adored by marketing executives, such as rich media, Flash, frames and DHTML, created accessibility issues for many sections of the online population. Those with visual impairments, low bandwidth connections, old or unusual browsers and computers all suffered as a result. Furthermore, they were less likely to be registered by search engines and would become less easy to locate by the online user.

More than this, an unthinking approach to the needs of individual users resulted in websites that were confusing to navigate and over-the-top marketing-led content that was difficult to understand and extract useful information from. New media producers wanting effective websites which are used by as many people as possible should avoid getting carried away by the latest interactive technology and concentrate instead on how people really behave online, what they want from websites and which tools are most appropriate for meeting their needs.

Profiles

Julie Howell, Campaigns Officer (Accessible Internet), RNIB
Julie Howell has worked for RNIB for 6 years. She joined the organisation in 1994 as an Assistant Librarian, and became RNIB's first Website Editor in 1997. In May 1999 she joined the Public Policy and Digital Access Teams as a Campaigns Officer with responsibility for influencing public policy so that people with sight problems may enjoy full access to the Internet. In 1999 she helped the UK Government to draft their first set of Web design guidelines. She is an active member of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Education and Outreach Working Group. Julie features in the WAI video Web Sites That Work, and campaigns throughout the UK for inclusive Web design. She is a graduate in information studies, and a member of the Institute of Information Scientists.

Kevin Carey, Director, HumanITy
Kevin was educated at Cambridge and Harvard universities. He worked for the BBC as a journalist before embarking on a career of development assistance with Sight Savers International, which took him to more than 60 developing countries. He is an advisor to the UK Government, a writer, broadcaster and university lecturer and is a long standing member of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). He is the Editor of the British Journal of Visual Impairment (until January 2001) and Vice Chairman of the RNIB.

Mike Teasdale, Managing Consultant, Answerthink Europe
Mike Teasdale is a managing consultant within Answerthink's pan-European CRM practice, working for clients like IBM, Abbey National, Motorola and ABN-AMRO. His particular interest is in eCRM, site usability and writing for the web. He started his career as a copywriter in the direct marketing industry working on accounts like the Labour Party, Sun Alliance, Midland Bank and Orange. In 1995 he co-founded of one of the first new media agencies in London, Tequila Digital. Mike is a well known figure in the industry and makes regular contributions to Internet publications and industry groups.

Ben Morley, Perception DM
Ben is Stategy and Client Services Director at Perception DM, following a seven year period in agency and client-side design management and marketing communication roles. He is an experienced design manager, with expertise in usability and interface design issues. Ben is a passionate believer that good digital media design has to focus on the user rather than the technology. Along with his colleagues, he established www.usercentricity.com last year, a forum which aims to promote a better understanding and adoption of a user-centric design approach.

Maximum Access was produced in association with Ethical Media: www.ethicalmedia.com