Petition to Google to Develop Accessible Sites

Just recently, Mike Gifford (@mgifford) started a petition to google for developing more accessible sites. Gifford is asking google to create standards compliant, accessible sites, to set an example as google code and design is often copied by developers. But let's see what happened behind the scenes.

As Google is setting the standards of Internet search, they are also rolling out a bunch of products, adding to their gain of their market share. Most people are using Google for their internet search, e-mail, and other activities. As a socially responsible company, Google made a commitment to make its products accessible to people with disabilities.

However, many of the updated Google products became less accessible than they were before. I have used AdWords several years ago, which was definitely much more accessible to people with disabilities than what it is today. Also, the Google Analytics software is something I would certainly use while running my business, if it was more accessible. Personally, regardless of how well I can use a product, I always pick the most accessible one, to support those companies, which take the time to make it work for people with disabilities, but this also allows me to make better recommendations when people ask me for accessible software.

Google accessibility received more public attention in September, 2009, when Steve Faulkner (@stevefaulkner) wrote a post about the accessibility of the Google Chrome Frame on the Paciello Group's blog. Steve Faulkner concluded that users of assistive technologies are locked out of Google Chromes technologies, until Google makes the Chrome Frame accessible.

As the frustration of users of assistive technologies wasn't enough, Jared Smith (@jared_w_smith) blogged on WebAIM about the accessibility of Google Wave where he previewed the product from the accessibility point of view, and concluded that it was "totally inaccessible".

It is not to say that most companies are completely accessible, but Google does have a certain expectation attached to it as a role model, and while an occasional accessibility violation would have gone by almost unnoticed, the almost simultaneous two incidents brought Google accessibility into the center of attention among people with disabilities.

Gifford's petition, however, is not asking Google to address the above described issues. Rather, it is asking them to become leaders of accessibility. Google has responded to the petition with a new page, where resources pertaining to accessibility are pulled together. The address of the page is: http://www.google.com/accessibility. Currently the page contains about 20 accessibility related posts from the last two and a half years.

As events will unfold, I will add the developments to this post.