Say you have a store in a city with a population of 600,000.
You sell a quality product in a pleasant atmosphere and hope your client-base grows infinitely. The only problem with your shop is that your city has 50,000 wheelchair-enabled citizens and you have no access ramp. That means you have basically shut your business out of fifty thousand possible sales.
On the Internet, your potential client base is 6 billion strong and growing and regenerating every day. Of that base, 500 million of your potential clients may not be able to click your cute, button link much less get past your warning page. This vast pool of potential buyers are the physically disabled.
You think you made a clean, easy loading site with simple navigation. You have high-quality pics and video streams, but according to the Centers for Disease Control: "Over 8 million Americans have visual impairments (1996)". Eight million people cannot view your content or read your navigation buttons because your "alt" tags contain no text. By CDC statistics from 1996, 22 million Americans cannot hear your audio ads and 4.6 million may not physically be able to press Ctrl-D. Some of that 4.6 million could even possibly, suffer a seizure from your blinking text link. Sure you promote smut, but you're not a bad person. You would never intentionally trigger a gran mal seizure. You would never intentionally blow off a possible 500 million unique clicks to your page.
What can you do to remedy this marketing oversight? The answers to these three, basic questions should help you get started on your mission to sell sex to the masses:
Question 1: Who are these customers and how can I sell to them?
Answer: The physically impaired web surfer may not be the newbie you might have imagined. Actually, computers greatly enhance the capabilities and enjoyment of many physically disabled people. These users already have text-to speech software and special browser programs that give them a gateway to the Internet. Just like everyone else, there is a good share that search for porn.
The visually impaired may only need bigger "font" tags or may be completely sightless and require text-only sites. The hearing impaired do get to see your high-dollar images, but any audio content should either be speech-to-text enabled or at least not prevent them from enjoying the visuals. Those with mobility impairments will have problems with keyboard and mouse commands and might use eye-gaze-operated keyboards or voice input utilities. Those with cognitive and language impairments may have dyslexia or problems perceiving sensory information. Inconsistent site navigation or confused wording can greatly hinder their exploration of your sponsor tour.
Put Meta tags on your fully accessible website so the 500 million can find you. Post text links to your specially enabled versions of your adult website on your warning page. Avoid tables and frames as they confuse special reader programs. Consider audio captioning and allowing keyboard support for menu commands on your site. Think of this virtually, untapped market as a niche. Get to know who they are and what they need as you would with any other niche.
Question 2: What kind of content do the disabled/enabled want?
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Answer: The same smorgasbord as all the other porn consumers at the smut buffet. The difference is the HTML coding and special enhancements to content already available for purchase.
A hearing disabled customer might enjoy your video feeds more if their speech-to-text reader can decipher the audio. A physically disabled user will appreciate a little tutorial on how to use the tab key to navigate your site. The visually disabled will need more story content and screen reader capability. A customer with cognitive or neurological disabilities will benefit from a clean, consistent layout. Finally, please. For the sake of those with seizure disorders, get rid of that damned, blinking text.
Question 3: Where can I go for tools and resources that help me make my adult site accessible to this market?
Answer: Even though the search engines have yet to categorize porn surfing for the disabled, there are resources to help you get started on the right path to full website accessibility.
The Web Accessibility Initiative: From the World Wide Web Consortium has the standards, tutorials and tools to show you how to make your adult site universally compliant for all adults.
Microsoft : Visit their accessibility page dedicated to issues, information and software.
Bobby (http://www.cast.org/bobby/): This online URL checker can search your page for accessibility errors and gives an extensive report result.
As said previously in this article, you're not a bad person. You are in the adult industry. You know that porn is more than just something to giggle at. You know that what you do helps people feel better and can take the edge off of loneliness and isolation. You may not get every one of the 500 million to visit your website, but when it comes to sex, you can allow them to be enabled instead of disabled.