Input for today

Dear EOWG,

I will join today's call as usually in the listening mode so here is my input in electronic form:

Introduction, first sentence: it would be better just to say "Many pages on the Web are inaccessible, or poorly accessible, to people with disabilities and older people." I would like to strike out "with ageing related impairements" because ageing related impairements are not the only barrier for older people to use the web. It is generally harder for older people to jump start using a PC or the internet if they have never done it before. And this also can be made as one bullet point in the introduction, meaning a page is inaccessible because a user does not know how to "access" it.

One bullet point that can be added to the introduction: accessibility is well understood but updating old and complex sites to become accessible might be a lengthy process.

And another bullet point to add to the introduction: accessibility is somewhat understood and implemented but not tested rigorously enough. (What I mean here, if a webmaster follows accessibility guidelines he still does not have good perspective of how his page would be used by disabled people and if site is not tested with JAWS and people with various disabilities, even a compliant site might not be very accessible. E.g. all ALT tags are in place but the text put there poorly conveys information and is of little or no help for a blind user). 

In the Approach, second bunch of bullets: need to add * tell the browser and browser version you are using as well as any used assistive technologies if and when applicable. This is not an optional computer information part. It is well known that the same site may run differently in different browsers. This information is important for web developers.

I also think that optionally tell about your computer or SW has 2 things in it. I doubt hardware details are important here but telling what OS is on your PC is a useful piece of information and potentially not too difficult to dig out. So I'd suggest that we have one bullet of a mandatory requirement to tell about OS; any used assistive technology and browser + browser version. And a second bullet to optionally provide with any additional computer HW or SW information. If we do so, then don't recommend readers to skip the section that explains what information to provide and how about HW and SW.

Second last paragraph in Approach: replace "you issue" with "your issue".

Br, Anna Zhuang

Received on Friday, 20 March 2009 10:44:01 UTC