Re: Assistive Technology Detection

My reading of the WCAG 2.0's Understanding document is the working group interprets the issue of affordability within the requirement of 'accessibility supported'. To quote: 
"This topic raises the question of how many or which assistive technologies must support a Web technology in order for that Web technology to be considered "accessibility supported".. ..This is a complex topic and one that varies both by environment and by language. There is a need for an external and international dialogue on this topic. Some notes to help in understanding and exploring this topic are...
Currently assistive technology that is affordable by the general public is often very poor... In many cases, the cost of assistive technologies is too high for users who need it... [emphasis added]
The Working Group, therefore, limited itself to defining what constituted support and defers the judgment of how much, how many, or which AT must support a technology to the community and to entities closer to each situation that set requirements for an organization, purchase, community, etc.
The Working Group encourages more discussion of this topic in the general forum of society since this lack of generally available yet robust assistive technologies is a problem that affects users, technology developers and authors negatively."



 

    On Friday, January 26, 2018 12:11 PM, Phill Jenkins <pjenkins@us.ibm.com> wrote:
 

 | . . . Ibelieve part 2.d addresses Bob's point about poverty levels. . . 

hmm, not the way Iinterpret Bob's comments over the years.  For example, quoting 2.dTheuser agent(s) that support the technology are accessibility supported andare available for download or purchase in a way that:   
   - does not cost a person with a disabilityany more than a person without a disability and
   - is as easy to find and obtain for a personwith a disability as it is for a person without disabilities.
doesnot address "afordability", but does address equal costs andequal availability.  If a $900 laptop, with the latest operating system,browser and AT (such as free NVDA) is equally the same costs and equallyavailable in the English language in the neighboor store  - then itis understood to be "accessibility supported".  

Bob, correct meif I'm wrong, but Bob is talking about how some users with disabilitiescan't afford the $900 lapttop, so they can't afford to upgrade to the latestARIA supported technologies for example.  The solution is the samecost and same availability to both the user with a disability and the personwithout disabilities.  And while it is equally expensive to both aswell, it is equally compliant (or can be) to standards and equally usableto both .   

WCAG standardsdo not and should not address affordability in my opinion.  Othermechanism do and should address affordability.  And, for example,neither does or should ADA standards cover the affordability ofan accessible van in defining the number of van accessible parking spotsthere needs to be in a parking lot, it does not cover the affordabilitywhen considering the width and spacing of a van accessible parking spot. And there are considerations in the standards that are "determined"by the AT it self, such as the Van Accessible specs are wider, etc. thanregular car accessible spots.   Similar to how now ARIA is supportedby platforms and assistive technology - so it can be considered in theclaim that it is accessibility supported. 
 ___________
Regards,
Phill Jenkins
Check out the newsystem for requesting an IBM product Accessibility Conformance Report VPAT®at  able.ibm.com/request
pjenkins@us.ibm.com
SeniorEngineer & Accessibility Executive
IBM Research Accessibility
linkedin.com/in/philljenkins/




From:       MarkWeiler <mweiler@alumni.sfu.ca>
To:       PhillJenkins <pjenkins@us.ibm.com>
Cc:       DavidWoolley <forums@david-woolley.me.uk>, "w3c-wai-ig@w3.org"<w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Date:       01/26/201802:52 AM
Subject:       Re:Assistive Technology Detection



Phil, (Bob)

My reading of the WCAG2.0 documents is that "conformance claims" can involve statingweb technologies relied upon but these "conformance claims" areoptional.  Conformance itself, however, has 5 required parts, withpart 4 requiring web content to only rely on accessibly supported contentto meet the success criteria ("Only accessibility-supportedways of using technologiesare reliedupon to satisfythe success criteria.")  

From the referencedocument,it seem that AT's and user agents determine whether something is accessibilitysupported or not: "a Web content technology is 'accessibility supported'when users' assistive technologies will work with the Web technologiesAND when the accessibility features of mainstream technologies willwork with the technology" (caps and emphasis in the original). 

The technicaldefinition of accessibility-supportedhas two parts and I believe part 2.d addresses Bob's point about povertylevels, as do other parts in the reference document.




On Thursday, January25, 2018 10:42 PM, Phill Jenkins <pjenkins@us.ibm.com> wrote:


| howcan a site or app know 
| what web content technologies to serve up 
| that are accessibly supported 
| without knowing the user agents and AT the user is using?  

My understanding is that for a site or app to claim conformance, the claimanthas to know or the claim has to state which accessibility supported technologieswere relied upon in the conformance testing, not in what the user is usingafter the conformance testing is done.  Of course what users actuallyuse significantly influences what are the definitive list of accessibilitysupported technologies.  There is no requirement to "serve upthat technology" to claim conformance. 

For example, if the operating system and browser platform support highcontrast technology, the claim can be made that the site or app conforms(or still conforms) with all the WCAG Success Criteria when the user isrelying on those accessibility supported features in the operating systemand browser platform.  The site or app conformance would fail if the1.3.1 Info and relationship success criteria fails because some labelsor headings "disappeared" when turning on the high contrast accessibilityfeatures supported in the OS & Browser. 
___________
Regards,
Phill Jenkins
pjenkins@us.ibm.com
Senior Engineer & Accessibility Executive
IBM Research Accessibility
linkedin.com/in/philljenkins/



From:        MarkWeiler <mweiler@alumni.sfu.ca>
To:        DavidWoolley <forums@david-woolley.me.uk>, "w3c-wai-ig@w3.org"<w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Date:        01/25/201806:52 PM
Subject:        Re:Assistive Technology Detection



Related to AT detection is how can a site or app know what web contenttechnologies to serve up that are accessibly supported without knowingthe user agents and AT the user is using?  

Accessibility supported is a requirementfor conformance.   Andresearchfindingsshow differences inhow browsers and ATs are supporting web content technologies.





On Thursday, January 25, 2018 7:08 PM, David Woolley <forums@david-woolley.me.uk>wrote:


The dangers I see are:

1) this will reinforce the idea that the only disabled people are those
that use JAWs.

2) it will probably have a similar effect to early mobile web sites, 
which tended to be cleaner, and easier to use that the main web site. 
That may mean that the main web site gets more difficult to use, and you
won't be able to do the equivalent of using wap instead of www.

On 25/01/18 19:18, accessys@smart.netwrote:
> 
> counter to concept of accessibility, one should not need to identify
> and personally I would be ,opposed to it.