Two accessibility, or why accessibility and availability are not the same
May 19, 2016 is the third Thursday of the fifth month, which means Global Accessibility Awareness Day or Accessibility Awareness Day . On this day, it is customary to talk about accessibility, as well as how important it is to take it into account when developing web resources and software. However, practice shows that in the Russian-speaking IT community, it would not hurt to talk not just about the importance of accessibility, but about what it really is, since many obviously still do not understand the difference between accessibility and availability.
In particular, on Habrahabr , articles about accessibility of systems regularly appear in the Accessibility hub , from where they are eventually cleared by requests from accessibility enthusiasts.
You have a question, “What is this?” Then we go to you!
In the IT field, two English-language terms are actively used - “accessibility” and “availability”, which, as a rule, are both translated into Russian as “accessibility”. Most likely, this is precisely the reason for the fact that many Russian-speaking experts, trying to speak on the topic of accessibility of systems and seeing a hub about accessibility, suggest that this is about the same thing. However, the fact is that accessibility and availability are two completely different accessibility, so you can not mix these concepts.
Simply put, accessibility is the availability of the product for people with various physical and / or hardware limitations, and availability is the availability of the system for accessing it. For example, for a site accessibility is the ability to use it by a person with impaired vision, and availability is how stable this site opens.
Thus, today's Global Accessibility Awareness Day is dedicated not to how important it is to make fail-safe systems, but how important it is to make products that people with various disabilities can use. Accordingly, in the Accessibility hub, you need to write not about the high availability of systems, but about the adaptation of interfaces for people with disabilities.
Of course, no one is against high availability, just about accessibility it would also be nice to at least know, and ideally also take it into account. Accessibility Awareness Day is a good reason to think about it.
In particular, on Habrahabr , articles about accessibility of systems regularly appear in the Accessibility hub , from where they are eventually cleared by requests from accessibility enthusiasts.
You have a question, “What is this?” Then we go to you!
In the IT field, two English-language terms are actively used - “accessibility” and “availability”, which, as a rule, are both translated into Russian as “accessibility”. Most likely, this is precisely the reason for the fact that many Russian-speaking experts, trying to speak on the topic of accessibility of systems and seeing a hub about accessibility, suggest that this is about the same thing. However, the fact is that accessibility and availability are two completely different accessibility, so you can not mix these concepts.
- Accessibility is a property of products (tangible or intangible) that characterizes the possibility of their use by as many different users as possible, regardless of the limitations of these users.
- Availability is a property of technical systems that characterizes their ability to be protected and easily restored from small downtimes in a short time and mainly by automated means in order to avoid unfulfilled service.
Simply put, accessibility is the availability of the product for people with various physical and / or hardware limitations, and availability is the availability of the system for accessing it. For example, for a site accessibility is the ability to use it by a person with impaired vision, and availability is how stable this site opens.
Thus, today's Global Accessibility Awareness Day is dedicated not to how important it is to make fail-safe systems, but how important it is to make products that people with various disabilities can use. Accordingly, in the Accessibility hub, you need to write not about the high availability of systems, but about the adaptation of interfaces for people with disabilities.
Of course, no one is against high availability, just about accessibility it would also be nice to at least know, and ideally also take it into account. Accessibility Awareness Day is a good reason to think about it.