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I recently attended AnEventApart (AEA) in Chicago. AEA, spin-off of AListApart ('for people who make websites') and baby of the two founding fathers / gods / gurus of standards-based web design, Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer, fields a higher class speaker than your average web design event.
This year's bunch included Zeldman and Meyer themselves, and others known to have something of substance to say, like Andy Clarke and Dan Cederholm. Lesser known but nonetheless making an impact were Whitney Hess on users, Kristina Halvorson on content, and Luke Wroblewski's entertaining and eye-opening talk on the many, many, many things you can get wrong in web form design.
No session on accessibility, though.
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As a result of engaging in INMD, all participants took action in relation to ID inclusion, passed on what they had learnt to others, or planned future action.
The kinds of action taken include
adapting use of imagery to support text
using large fonts and simple text
re-checking previous work for ID accessibility
passing on information at work, or through blogs.
Therefore, INMD succeeded in contributing to the inclusion of people with ID in the world wide web, but mainly for people at the mild end of the ID spectrum.
Participants recognised that adaptations for this audience - such as simple text, nice graphics, simple choices and a clear message - could widen and benefit all audiences. In contrast, accessibility measures for people with severe or profound ID may be intrusive to non-disabled audiences. Consequently, participants acknowledged that it would be less likely that they would attend to these audiences' needs in their future work.