RE: html5 editor responds to Canvas accessibility related bugs

Exactly. Our job is to simply provide the tools to allow authors who need
to make their applications accessible do so.

Ian,

Aside from individuals who care that accessibility is the right thing to
do, companies that sell product to governments (federal, state, local, and
international) are required to sell accessible IT. Furthermore, the U.S.
Dept. of Justice recently stated that their interpretation of the ADA is
that it applies to all public web sites much the same way that companies
are required to put wheel chair ramps in place so that mobility impaired
people can access buildings. They do this so that all people can
participate in society regardless of ability and because there are people
and companies out there who see accessibility as a cost and if they were
required to do it to sell to a customer would not. What you are hearing is
that both IBM and Microsoft believe we need the tools to do the job as both
companies have a long legacy of supporting people with disabilities as it
is the right thing to do and because our customers demand accessible
products. They also demand that we innovate and possibly use canvas in ways
you would not like. Also, we may buy an innovative startup some day where,
in most cases, accessibility is low in priority and seldom addressed. Our
job in accessibility is to allow authors to innovate yet be given the tools
to make the results accessible. Frankly, it is a bit of a culture shock
when they get absorbed that they now have to support a whole host of
requirements they did not have to before: IPV6, internationalization,
accessibility, security, privacy, etc.

Now if there are people who are not compelled to address accessibility for
the above reasons there is not much we can do.

A good analogy is seat belts. Many states have seat belt laws to protect
people from themselves and to reduce the insurance liability costs. All
cars have seat belts - a tool to meet the law and to protect yourself. You
have the choice to ignore the seat belt warning and clip the belt behind
your back and continue on your merry way. That is your choice. If a person
wants to assume the risk of injury and risk of getting a ticket who are we
to argue?



Rich

Rich Schwerdtfeger
CTO Accessibility Software Group



From:	Frank Olivier <Frank.Olivier@microsoft.com>
To:	Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>, Richard
            Schwerdtfeger/Austin/IBM@IBMUS
Cc:	Charles Pritchard <chuck@jumis.com>, "janina@rednote.net"
            <janina@rednote.net>, Steven Faulkner
            <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>, "public-canvas-api@w3.org"
            <public-canvas-api@w3.org>
Date:	09/26/2010 02:17 PM
Subject:	RE: html5 editor responds to Canvas accessibility related bugs



IOW 'Why will people make accessible canvas elements?'
Quite frankly, 'Why?' is not a question that we (the engineers) will have
to answer.

Canvas is a tool in the html5 toolbox. Authors will use canvas for reasons
and scenarios that we will not be able to enumerate. They will create UIs
with canvas - this is a very safe bet - and nobody will be able to dissuade
them with a 'canvas doesn't have accessibility, don't use it for UIs'
argument.

Because canvas is essentially just a bitmap, the author will have to do
additional work to add more (accessibility) information. This is
unavoidable.

Our responsibility is to ensure that authors have a mechanism for making
canvas UI accessible. Our engineering responsibility (wrt the first
question above) is to ensure that the mechanism is not overly cumbersome.

Who will ensure that web pages (with canvas UIs) are accessible? Quite
frankly: this is not a problem that just (we HTML5) engineers can solve;
just like with today's web, the people that create and use the web will
have to prioritize/demand accessibility.

But first we will have to enable authors to make accessible canvas UIs.


-----Original Message-----
From: public-canvas-api-request@w3.org [
mailto:public-canvas-api-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Ian Hickson
Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2010 11:05 AM
To: Richard Schwerdtfeger
Cc: Charles Pritchard; janina@rednote.net; Steven Faulkner;
public-canvas-api@w3.org
Subject: Re: html5 editor responds to Canvas accessibility related bugs

On Sun, 26 Sep 2010, Richard Schwerdtfeger wrote:
>
> We can certainly suggest that authors do something the right way as
> Ian suggests but frankly that is nothing more than a recommendation.

Why would an author who doesn't care about accessibility enough to use the
tools we have provided to make editors accessible, and who instead uses
canvas, care enough about accessibility to use the canvas tools we could
provide to make editors accessible?


--
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'