Re: Final Draft New 508 Rules, and fail cases for 1.3

   Dear Phill,

 First, I am sorry that my first response was so crabby.

 All I want is the ability to use the whole screen to enlarge text and
reformat it.  For me this works best for reading and composition. I have
found empirically that other typographic transformations also help a lot.
For doing this the mainstream browser is the best tool I ever encountered.
Unlike most people I can create a usable environment for myself, so I know
the power of reading with a customized format. Many word processors are
also flexible enough to do the job.

Vicki Hanson really started this approach.  *Use the user agent to adapt to
user needs*.  She was too early. The platforms of the day could not sustain
her work. Today we have the stable technology to create relatively portable
browser extensions that can  channel the user agent's power to support
print disabilities. To do this we need the access to customize. We need
content with style that can be accessed. The structural conditions I have
identified are necessary conditions for content to permit customization. I
am not sure they are sufficient, but I think with the rest of WCAG 2.0 they
are.

I am a person with central retina damage and moderate low vision
(20/60-20/200). My accommodation may not work for hazy or blurry vision,
peripheral retina damage or extreme light sensitivity. It may not work for
severe low vision (20/200-20/400) or profound low vision (20/400-20/1000).
There are visual readers in all of these categories.  Crossing condition
with severity you see that we have about 12 groups of users each of which
may need a different range of accommodation. I have tried screen
magnification. It does not work for me. That may not be true for someone in
one of the other groups or even someone like me. They may need other visual
customizations.

We need access to the presentation and the power of the user agent to
display our presentations just as cleanly as they display the complex
visual designs of sites for normal users.

That is what I am proposing. It is possible.

All you on the Access Board have your work cut out.

Wayne