This reminds me of how things work in the world of (American) Civil War reenacting, which is what I do why I’m not tied to my computer.
There have long been two classifications of reenactors: Those who care about authenticity, and those who don’t. The former, of which I am a part, spend many hours researching every detail of the Three M’s (Man, Method, Material) and constantly evolve their impression to fit the specific scenario on hand. If they are recreating a unit on campaign, they eat marching rations and camp with nothing more than the equipment on their back. If it is a garrison setting, they live high on the hog and dress up. They hand-sew their uniforms and wear the proper undergarments. Basically, they never quit researching and improving.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have the “mainstreamers”. These are reenactors who are more often than not there to shoot guns and have fun. They bring big ol’ tents to campaign-style events, filled with cots, coolers, and modern sleeping bags. They eat modern food, and their uniforms are made in India for next-to-nothing. By all measures, they are doing things “wrong”. However, they are still passionate about what they do — you have to be to wear heavy wool uniforms in the middle of summer while running all over a battlefield. Most of them love teaching the public about the history of the war.
Ultimately, all reenactors should be striving to improve their impression. However, there is a “weight apathy” that holds most mainstreamers in their place. Nobody wants to be the odd fish gnawing hardtack and salt pork when everyone else is slurping on ribs. I’ve been there many times, and it can be a bit demoralizing, to say the least. However, once one person decides to step up and set a good tone, it’s amazing how quickly a group can be transformed.
The most difficult thing to impart on a long-time mainstreamer is why they should care. To a large extent, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. Unless you’ve done the research and know the right way of doing things, you won’t care about doing them the right way. Unless you’ve read the stories of the original soldiers, and befriended their stories, you won’t see why it’s important. To care, you must research, and to research, you must care.
I’ve found that the best way to encourage this care is to force the apathetic out of their comfort zone, and get them to experience what life was like for the original soldiers. I just took a group of 10 reenactors out on a 12-mile march in full campaign order (~60 lbs of gear), many of whom had never walked more than a few hundred yards in their kit. During the course of that day, I saw many lightbulbs appear over their heads, and suddenly, they began to care about the history and the stories of the original soldiers.
To bring that back to what we were talking about: I’ve often wondered how it would change the landscape of the web if everybody tried using the internet “blind” for a day, using just screen readers to navigate. How about using a cheap old display with contrast problems and horrible color reproduction? Ever throttled your internet speed at your office to match the speed of a poor 3G connection?
I’ve done those. It’s enlightening, and really causes one to think differently about our duty as people who build the web. Now, if we could only get others to try it.
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