:: Designing an inclusive I-Space ::

A colleague at work sent me a link to a story on ITworld.ca about designing accessible websites for disabled persons.

The gist of the story is the idea that all corporate entities who are in the business of selling products and services should not ignore any sector of the population, regardless of their potential disabilities, such as blindness. Additionally, it is critical of web designers and coders who ignore W3C accessibility standards in their designs and code.

Reading this story, I have to wonder the myriad of possible ramifications if the ADA laws were applied to the online place....

...Would it mean more elegant, tighter-coded spaces?
...Or would it just mean scope creep and yet another reason for corporations to not go online?
...And what would the impact to individual spaces, such as those in the blogosphere, be from such laws?
...How would enforcement of an essentially American law be managed cross-borders, given the innately global nature of the net?
...What is the impact on me, as a Canadian, if I wish to sell to Americans?
...If I explicitly state I don't wish to have Americans use my online space or online corporate place, would I still have to comply if a single disabled American stumbles across my site and complains?

Using Hall's concepts..

...are disabled persons being "silenced in the production of images" online because of the way in which images are setup and presented?

Using De Certeau's ideas...

...Does the choice of web designers and programmers to ignore the W3C standards in favour of their own style of coding, designing or adherence to a technical platform suite (most usually Microsoft) denote a corporate "strategy" in the De Certeau sense?

Many questions to which I don't yet have answers or suggestions, but which are worth pondering if the idea of having a completely inclusive I-Space is deemed a worthy goal.