Re: For Review: Accessibility page for beta.w3.org

Hi Laura,

Thanks for the comments and perspective. Replies below.

Laura Carlson wrote:
...
> One thing that has been a significant aid for accessibility advocates
> outside of WAI (be it in the HTML WG or teaching web design and
> development at a university) is being able to point to WAI EO's
> current definition:
> 
> "Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web."
> 
> That is one solid definition that we have relied upon.

Good. There is no intention of changing that in http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility

We are hoping that the additional approach to presenting accessibility that we are working through with this new page would help address some of the problems that you point out with those working on HTML 5 and many others.

...
> Regarding the draft text:
> 
> "The web is fundamentally designed to be available to all people,
> whatever their hardware, software, language, culture, location, or
> physical or mental ability."
> 
> In light of HTML5, it may be more honest to change that to the past
> tense: "The web was fundamentally designed..."

sigh. Good point. One could also argue that accessibility features are missing from HTML 4 and other fundamental web technologies, thus the need for WAI-ARIA. So "The web is fundamentally designed to be available to all people..." is not true in one sense, the technical details. However, I wonder if we can comfortably say it in general, as that certainly is Tim's principle.

...
> Also please consider adding the word "specifications" to that sentence to read:
> 
> "However: When websites, web tools, and specifications are not accessible...

OK. We want to keep it as succinct as possible. We were going for "web tools" to include  technical specifications, authoring tools, browsers and other user agents, assistive technologies, etc. I'll see about getting that in there somewhere.

...

Best,
~Shawn

Received on Monday, 24 August 2009 17:01:42 UTC