Commercial Suicide?

Today I read an article called Accessibility and the Law posted by Andy Budd on his blog.

"This legislation [Ed: The DDA] doesn't demand conformance to certain accessibility guidelines through fear of prosecution. However it does give people a legal route if social pressure has failed. Rather than immediately being taken to court, the DDA encourages discussion and mediation. Only after all the parties have sat down and still cannot come to a reasonable solutions will civil action be started. Several companies have already gone through this process and all have made suitable concessions to avoid legal action."

Another part of the article said:

"Some people suggest that in-accessible sites are commercial suicide and that companies will be forced to make their site accessible just to survive. Unfortunately that’s not the case."

Matthew Pennell of The Watchmaker Project commented:

"Exactly. The whole argument about "there are 8 million potential customers out there, you’ re cutting off 11% of your audience" is a massive red herring; what company is going to choose spending money to reach that 11%, over doing nothing and still reaching 90% of the world?"

I believe what Matthew was saying was that he agreed with what Andy Budd and that telling a company that not using web standards is a "commercial suicide" is not enough.

I will use a real world example that illustrates this point. The name of the site will remain hidden until the end of the post.

This multi-national company has a Flash splash screen which allows you to choose which site you want to enter. You are also offered a non-flash version.

The non-flash equivalent is basically a sliced up still of the Flash animation. You are presented with the same 3 options of which site you wish to enter. Unfortunately, if Java script is disabled then you are unable to enter the site at all.

I don't think this is what Jeremy Keith is talking about when he mentions unobtrusive java script, but this is a small example of the kind of thing to expect

<a href="javascript:top.navigate('/usa/index.html', false, 'USA', top);">
<img src="images/gate_b_usa.gif" alt="From music to sports to entertainment,
*** has it covered. Check it out!" name="b_usa" id="b_usa"
onmouseover="MM_swapImage('usa','','images/gate_top_usa_ro.gif','b_usa','',
'images/gate_b_usa_ro.gif','bot_usa','','images/gate_bottom_usa_ro.gif',1)"
onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" border="0" height="26" width="136">
</a>

Anyway, if you can manage to get into the site every aspect of navigation is controlled by Java script, right down to the site map.

If the site detects that you have java script disabled (Which sometimes it doesn't) then you are greeted with the friendly message:

"JavaScript functionality on [company name's] corporate website is used to create navigation menus. The menus will only work if JavaScript is activated."

This site then doesn't even show you any of the navigation and seems to break the layout tables when 2 of the 3 available links (neither user java script, Both of which are press releases) are followed. I can only assume the reason for this is that some of the table cells are created "on the fly" by the java script and these cells are needed otherwise the whole design is thrown out of whack.

The only other link that you can follow is a Flash based "virtual vending machine" which opens in a new window without alerting the user to this fact. I assume some people are guessing what the site is by now.

Some stats about the main page:

Page name: index.html
Lines: 278
Doctype: HTML 4.0 Transitional
Errors: 48
Size: 13.33kb

The company?

Coca-Cola

Now, the last time I checked Coca-Cola were doing quite well in the grand scheme of things.

I also know, from turning java script on and navigating the site, that Coca-Cola spend a substantial amount of time and money supporting good causes and even have their own foundation to "improve the quality of life in the community and enhance individual opportunity through education"

Through this Coca-Cola have donated $124 million over the last 10 years alone.

I would say that Coca-Cola are a very socially responsible company and the are also proactive rather than reactive in a lot of areas.

Would they intentionally exclude visitors to their site? - I very much doubt it, it's not that kind of party.

Could they save money by adopting web standards? - I would be very surprised if they couldn't.

Commercial suicide? - I think not. Take a look at their books.

I feel that this backs up the point made that it is indeed not commercial suicide.

So why do a lot of large companies not have fully standards compliant, fully accessible websites then?

Well, Massive companies such as Coca-Cola do not really rely on their web presence to sell their products. If Coca-Cola didn't have a website at all would it have an impact on their sales figures?

What would it cost them to completely retrofit their site to be fully standards compliant and, for argument sake, reach AA standard for accessibility? I personally don't know, but one thing I do know is that it would be a lot more than the potential revenue benefits as the web is just another advertising opportunity to them not a main revenue stream.

I feel that this is the reason why so many large companies still do not use web standards as a matter of course and I believe that this is a good example of why the Web Standards Project is needed and why they are a valuable commodity to the wed design community looking out for all our futures.

Keep up the good work guys ( and girls), looks like we will be needing your energy and expertise for a good while yet.