RE: Scott's Hypothetical Intranet

Kelly,
Your comments are well-taken. You will be interested to know that the legal
interpretation of "effective communication" for access to electronic and
information technology includes "timeliness of delivery, accuracy of the
translation and provision in a manner and medium appropriate to the
significance of the message and the abilities of the individual with the
disability." 

I commented on this in my 1998 article at the American Bar Association
summit "Applying the ADA to the Internet:  A Web Accessibility Standard"
found at http://www.rit.edu/~easi/law/weblaw1.htm.  


Cynthia D. Waddell
---------------------------------------------------
Cynthia D. Waddell   
ADA Coordinator
City Manager Department
City of San Jose, CA USA
801 North First Street, Room 460
San Jose, CA  95110-1704
(408)277-4034
(408)971-0134 TTY
(408)277-3885 FAX
http://www.rit.edu/~easi/webcast/cynthia.htm
http://www.aasa.dshs.wa.gov/access/waddell.htm 



-----Original Message-----
From: Kelly Ford [mailto:kford@teleport.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 1999 12:22 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: RE: Scott's Hypothetical Intranet


Bruce,

I believe your description is accurate more often than not.



At 12:18 PM 10/28/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>If an objective competent outside expert examines the situation, they 
>quickly find that maybe 1&2 is true, but upon close examination they learn 
>that:
>It turns out that the blind person using JAWS and MSIE who reports no 
>problems is:  A) Actually a "super user" and is jumping through ridiculous 
>hoops to make the system work (and doing things the average user -- blind 
>or not -- should not be expected to do); or, B) Having plenty of 
>difficulty, but not willing to admit and/or does not want to make waves.

These are difficult things to measure.  Where does knowledge of effective
use of an access tool end and jumping through hoops begin.

One could say that even a site that lacks alt tags isn't really a problem
because the links can still be followed.  You might have to experiment a
bit or a lot but you can still get around.  Personally I don't agree with
that idea but some in the disability community don't find anything wrong
with it.  To me accessibility has to have some measure of effective and
timely use of the material in question.

Received on Thursday, 28 October 1999 15:30:47 UTC