Re: Completed draft Accessibility page for new W3C website

catherine wrote:
> Finally, I would like to comment generally on what I read in the minutes 
> of your teleconference from September 4rth, particularly discussions on 
> item 1 that concerned accessibility vs universality and people with 
> disabilities vs everyone as a mission focus for WAI. Obviously, this 
> issue will keep coming up as there is a lot of pressure out there as 
> well as within. And while I think it is healthy for any organisation to 
> have these discussions and to evaluate where we are and where we are 
> headed, I feel that it would be most unfortunate should WAI decide to 
> change its focus at this time.
> 
> The work that WAI does can benefit everyone whether they are aware of it 
> or not. But more importantly, the work WAI does is essential for people 
> with disabilities. Jutta once wrote "For people without disabilities, 
> technology makes things convenient, for people with disabilities, it 
> makes things possible." The same could certainly be said of 
> accessibility. So basically, what I am saying is people with 
> disabilities still need their advocates. WAI is one such advocate and a 
> very important and, I think, successful one at that. I would hate to 
> lose it.

Catherine,

WAI still has no intention of changing our focus. While we have had interesting discussions in EOWG, there have not been any such considerations at the WAI level.

The minutes say:"
Shawn: Yes, I agree this is at the heart of much of the recent discussions. I want to refer to one email in the thread, when we were exploring universality previously, there was strong push back.
... there was concern that the specific needs people with disabilities will get lost if the focus is made more broad.
... Clearly we are not going to change WAIs mission today, but this is good dialogue about thinking about the issue.
"

Indeed my point was to acknowledge the perspective of one individual, and make it clear that that person's perspective is not universally shared. (pun intended) What was minuted as "Clearly we are not going to change WAIs mission today" was a nice way of saying: Discussing this more is it not a good use of our time now; we've already decided we're not going to do it. Let's move on to the document".

See forwarded e-mail below.

Regards,
~Shawn

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: stab at betaw3
Resent-Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:13:25 +0000
Resent-From: w3c-wai-eo@w3.org
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:13:15 -0500
From: Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org>
To: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>
CC: w3c-wai-eo@w3.org, catherine <ecrire@catherine-roy.net>

> What are WAI E & O's goals in changing the definition of accessibility?

Hi Laura,

I'm not sure what you are referring to. WAI EOWG is not changing the definition of accessibility.

I am sorry that you got that impression. EOWG discusses different perspectives and explores different ideas. As drafts and minutes (which are inherently far from perfect) are available publicly to those outside the group, someone can see a piece but not have the overall context. In this case, perhaps some individual perspective or idea exploration got misunderstood as group decision.

There are no plans to change the documents on the WAI website with regards to the definition of accessibility. (We are early in the process of creating a new page <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/changelogs/cl-2009-w3c-site-redesign>, which we are working on through the EOWG teleconferences. Please remember that any e-mail exchanges will have several hours of teleconference discussion behind them, and also that meeting minutes are sketchy and may not be an accurate record of what was really said.)

Regards,
~Shawn


-----
Shawn Lawton Henry
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
e-mail: shawn@w3.org
phone: +1.617.395.7664
about: http://www.w3.org/People/Shawn/

Received on Friday, 11 September 2009 00:50:02 UTC