Let me first start with an appreciation to the people involved in the creation of standards. Even if I want them to be accessible (in all possible contexts), I recognize how much time, energy, mediation, considerations and even diplomacy are invested in standards. So thank you for your work and I hope your efforts are fairly recognized and rewarded.
But as for the governments (on all possible levels) that need the standards and that want them to be implemented, respected, conformed to – please make the standards available and accessible. And by that I mean accessible to all people, including people with disabilities. And free of charge – so that even a small organization can acquire them and use them and try to conform to them. In this post I limit the concept of the standard to accessibility standards like EN 301 549 and EN 17161, but it does not need to be only them.
Once again – I understand that making standards costs time and time is money. And people involved need to dedicate a lot of both to succeed. And I know that they need to be reimbursed. But still – I am certain that it is possible to make the standards that are vital for accessibility, inclusive and universal design – free and accessible.
By not making them free and accessible and still kind of requiring them we fail to make the world more accessible.
Sure, we still need awareness, interpretation and best practices, but as the state of accessibility shows us it’s vital to break down as much of barriers as possible. And we can start with making the standards free.
I am aware that that will not solve the problems, but it will move the cause a bit closer to our goal. And by making the standards free – it will be easier to integrate them into our education. Organizations (and people) just starting with their accessibility journeys will have one obstacle less on their way to knowledge. And we really need less obstacles and more motivators if we want to succeed.
Anyway – I don’t understand how we require accessibility and at the same time prevent people learning about it. This needs to change fast. Some governments already work on this (thank you Canada for making EN 301 549 accessible for free and in HTML (opens in new window)) and it should be a common global goal, because we need to spread the awareness and paywalls are absolutely not the way to do it!
And – not to forget – translations of standards make accessibility more accessible as well. I use English in this blog, but translations are key because of legislation, documentation and also helping people understand. So – not only the standards needs to be free and accessible, but their translations as well.
Therefore – remind stakeholders (especially government or government wannabe ones) that we need free and accessible accessibility standards – to make accessibility more accessible.
