- From: Gian Sampson-Wild <gian@tkh.com.au>
- Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:06:29 +1000
- To: "'Loretta Guarino Reid'" <lorettaguarino@google.com>
- Cc: <public-comments-WCAG20@w3.org>
Comment 15: Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer (Issue ID: LC-1034) Baseline - Has the WG given any thought to people who decide to turn off technologies that could be in a baseline (eg. Javascript, Flash etc) because that is their preferred way of browsing - due to their disability? Has the WG given any thought to people who use assistive technologies that cannot interpret the output of certain technologies (eg. some screen readers cannot use javascript)? Proposed Change: Remove the baseline theory, or allow only UAAG compliant programs in baseline. ---------------------------- Response from Working Group: ---------------------------- The working group has debated issues such as these extensively. The concept of baseline (now "accessibility-supported content technologies") grew out those struggles. If the assistive technologies that people use do not support certain technologies, then those technologies are not accessibility-supported Web technologies. However, people turning off support for technologies because they prefer not to use them is not an accessibility issue, since people without disabilities who choose to disable certain technologies will have equal difficulty accessing the content. Your proposal is that the only technologies that can be used are those for which there exist UAAG-compliant user agents. Since there are not yet any fully UAAG-compliant user agents, this requirement would mean that there could be no WCAG-complaint content possible. And the existence of a UAAG-compliant user agent doesn't mean that users have it available to them. So requiring UAAG-compliant user agents is not a guarantee of accessibility (although WCAG would be much easier to write if it could rely on UAAG compliant user agents). ---------------------------- Response from GSW: ---------------------------- My concern was with people turning off technologies because they could not interact with the content - due to their disability - when that technology was enabled. For example, someone with a cognitive disability easily distracted may choose to turn off Flash to turn off that flashing banner which undermines their ability to read the content - if that then means that they can't use the Flash navigation then what?
Received on Tuesday, 26 June 2007 01:06:48 UTC