Re: Proposal: Canvas accessibility and a media querries approach for alternative content (Action Item 6 in the HTML Accessibility Task Force)

On Fri, 22 Jan 2010, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> > 
> > Can browser vendors confirm that they are willing to prominently 
> > expose this new selection UI?
> 
> At Apple, our accessibility model for native apps is that users of 
> assistive technologies always get the real app UI, but semantic 
> information allows them to receive the information and/or operate the 
> controls in other ways. So you don't ever write a full contrast UI. The 
> user just goes to the Universal Access panel in System Preferences, and 
> chooses one of several high contrast options (including white-on-black 
> display, grayscale, and a contrast control). The the OS applies it to 
> all running applications. We believe that application authors are 
> [unlikely] to implement multiple wholly separate user interfaces for 
> different accessibility needs, so instead we give them the tools to 
> build a single interface adaptable to many needs. Furthermore, we think 
> it is good in principle if users with accessibility needs are 
> fundamentally using the same interface. If a blind user and a sighted 
> user are using fundamentally the same UI, just operated in different 
> ways, then it is much easier for the two of them to collaborate, or give 
> each other technical support or just helpful tips. We believe in this so 
> strongly that we actually have visual onscreen elements for certain 
> features that are intended for the blind. For example, when braille 
> output is enabled, it displays to the screen as well as to a braille 
> output device.

I entirely agree. This is exactly the problem I have with Richard's 
proposed fallback markup.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Saturday, 23 January 2010 06:04:31 UTC