- From: Gregory J. Rosmaita <unagi69@concentric.net>
- Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 22:53:34 -0400
- To: Greg Gay <g.gay@utoronto.ca>
- Cc: Web Content Accessiblity Guidelines Mailing List <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
aloha, greg! the purpose in promulgating the guidelines is not to provide guidance to regulatory bodies, but to define and explain, to the greatest extent possible, to the widest possible audience, the concepts of accessible design and to provide guidance for web content creators so that they are able to provide accessible content, in the absence of tools that automagically produce accessible markup wherever it is possible to do so... what use (for good or ill) third parties make of the WAI suite of guidelines is beyond the WAI's purview, and out of its control... what is in the WAI's control is: - ensuring that the information contained in WCAG is as accurate and up-to-date as possible - ensuring that the document can be used by the widest possible variety of audiences for the widest possible variety of uses - ensuring that, when content is created in accordance to WCAG, it serves its purpose, by being as accessible to the widest possible audience as possible yes, regulatory bodies will look to the WAI guidelines for (for lack of a better term) guidance in drawing up regulations and purchasing requirements, but that is not the function of the WAI guidelines... the function of the WAI guidelines is to ensure that persons with disabilities enjoy equal read/write access to the web wherein lies the undue hardship? not on the developers who should have adhered to standards, but on the end user who can't use the software... ignorance is never an excuse, but wanton disregard, once inaccessibility has been identified, is inexcusable... so, your developers have a simple choice: 1) scrap it and start over, adhering to industry standards for the platforms for which the product is being developed, 2) retrofit the product (which inevitably leads to half-assed access), or 3) continue on with the current development cycle and face a class action suit by those who cannot participate in distance learning because the software is inaccessible.... all JavaScript has a function -- if you can explain the functionality of the JavaScript, what is preventing you from adding functional equivalents for the functions the JavaScript is being used to provide? and don't downplay the intersection of usability, interoperability, internationalization, and accessibility -- while the laws of some countries may state that equal access must be provided for persons with disabilities, market forces demand that equal access must be provided for persons not using a desktop computer, a monitor, and a mouse to access the web... the solutions advanced for accessibility can equally be advanced for interoperability and -- especially -- internationalization... wouldn't potential clients be better off, then, with an interoperable product that works equally well for those using adaptive technology, those using mobile devices, and those for whom the distance in distance learning isn't merely geographical or cultural, but technological as well? when i worked as webmaster and technical director of online courses for a small college in new jersey, the college's administration and board of trustees were overjoyed to discover that, due to the interoperability of the pages that i had created for them, they had suddenly received a great many inquiries and registrants for their online courses from places as distant as the United Arab Emirates, mainland China, southeast Asia, and several African nations -- places where access to the internet, let alone the latest and greatest in hardware and software, is either extremely hard to secure, or which can only be achieved using javascript-incapable technology... so, draw your own conclusions about the weight of the burden faced by your programmers -- but keep in mind the undue, and unnecessary, burdens you are placing upon thousands of users... which is more of an "undue hardship" -- fixing the programmatic problems or having no autonomous access to online courseware? gregory.
Received on Tuesday, 30 May 2000 23:13:38 UTC