So, when people start talking about making every site accessible to the visually impaired, I start remembering that loss of common sense and get uncomfortable. It should be based on the site’s intended audience and intended use. For instance I don’t really know how relevant it would be for a skateboarding magazine site to be accessible by the visually impaired. I don’t want to discriminate, but that group may love to read-up on skateboarding, but is it worth it for a skateboarding company to incur the cost of supporting this audience, just because they are interested in reading about something they could not even participate in? People say it is only fair that they should have access, but is it really fair for the publisher to have to pay the price? That argument could be made about the Shimano XTR site, as well. We needed to visually show all of this new technology. For products that blind people would never buy, even if they could ride a bike, why would they be buying $3,000 worth of off-road biking components? Should Shimano have to afford doing a special version of the site just to be fair? Or worse, should the rest of the intended audience be forced to have to be limited to a text description with a handful of well-labeled images, instead of a vastly, more effective interactive presentation of the content?

The other side of the coin is if you’re an information-based site that is universally appropriate to seeing and non-seeing people, then yes, you should provide your content for both groups to be able to participate in.

However, I am absolutely opposed to the government, legal system or any other organization demanding universal compliance to a generalized accessibility mandate. I have been there. It is a very unfair environment to have to work in.

It should definitely be an interesting few years ahead of us. The added cost is definitely a big concern, compounded with coding for different browsers and platforms.

The reason I bring up accessibility is because of a recent article I read in Creative Review. It stated that new guidelines for accessibility (the phasing in of the 1999 Disability Discrimination Act) would require text to be no smaller than 12 pts for it to be considered usable for those with impaired vision. This was just one of the guidelines that I can remember off the top of my head that scared me most. It all goes back to common sense as you stated, I guess and hope.

Yeah, common sense is always a good thing.

Ok. I only have two questions left and one of them I’m sure you’re not too keen on hearing lately. When is JuxtInteractive.com getting a makeover and what’s the deal with Andrade and Drohan?

Ha-ha. Yes it is getting a make over (I hope) we have just been too busy to get to it. We do a bunch of creative stuff around here and so using our site as a creative release is not as big of a deal as it may be to other people. We get our work through tenacious biz dev efforts, not from our web site. So beyond ego, there is not much driving the redesign. But it has gotten so old that we really have to tackle that. I am getting started on it in a few weeks after I finish another creative project that I have been on for many, many months.

So, what is up with Andrade and Drohan? Well, if Chris could keep his big mouth shut we might get something done around here. And, if Paul had any talent maybe he could make something of himself…He-he.

No really, Chris Andrade is a very quiet but impassioned guy…great to work with and very intelligent. He is like our code babysitter. When we screw up our code, we shuffle over to Chris and say ‘Help me.’ He is a great programmer. I only wish we could give him more creative work. He kind of gets stuck behind the code. We are very lucky to have him here and not just because he is a great programmer.

Paul Drohan is a very, very talented designer and I enjoy working with him a great deal. We have a very good working relationship with lots of mutual respect. He came in here with only a little interactive experience and it has been rewarding to watch him grow in that area. Being that we both have three kids kind of bonds us in understanding life, as well. We work really hard here, but at the same time, we are committed to letting people have a life. We work to live, not live to work. (Although sometimes that gets fuzzy, he-he). Paul is a great guy that adds a lot of culture to the office, being that he is from the south and all.

I guess it makes sense that you brought up Chris and Paul, because they are very active in the online community. However, the reality is that we have a lot of really great people here — all very talented. We work very well as a team and we are all very inter-dependent with our work, so we don't really have any office heroes. I get a lot of press and do the speaking and writing stuff, but that is part of my job here and none of us believes that anybody here is really better than anybody else. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses, and we have learned how to work together to attempt to produce solid work — no matter what it takes.

I’m very fortunate to be the leader of such a talented and great group of people. I don’t know what else to say, other than I expect some cold hard cash from Chris and Paul for talking them up ;)

Thanks for the interview it was fun.

cheers.

Definitely. Thanks much Todd.

Juxt Interactive

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