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

I fear I'm somewhat to blame for this "can of worms".

Once PWD accept being labeled as "disabled" they have lost the battle in my
opinion but consensus considerations make it clear that this is currently a
minority view. Please don't muddy this thing by saying something like
"Inaccessible Web sites cause disability" because it completely confuses the
officially accepted definitions of both a11y and d8y. Once committed to the
mistaken use of these terms, there is no recourse but submission. I give up.

Love.

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 10:01 AM, Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org> wrote:

> 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
>
>


-- 
http://www.boobam.org/webgeezermild.htm