RE: 19 October 2000 minutes

At 04:15 PM 10/20/00 -0400, Leonard R. Kasday wrote:
>I suggest we stipulate that images of text are significant barriers

To me the disturbing aspect of this is that so much of our discussion 
centers on the rather interesting notion that putting a AA logo on an 
otherwise AA site could render it no longer a AA site! Then we seek an 
exception because this is "just a logo".

As we move to exclude older technologies and embrace so-far-non-existent 
new ones we must keep in mind that while it's fine to hold out hope that 
we're working on the problem and it will be "solved in six months", we must 
recognize the very real problems faced by both designers and users and, by 
withholding conformance confirmations (even, or especially(?), from our own 
sites) thereby applying what little "pressure" we can on our colleagues who 
have taken on the task of getting SVG, etc. from promise to realization. To 
worry that some wannabe seller of technology to some agency bound by 
regulations not to purchase inadequate stuff is a strawman. They've been 
getting around Section 508 for fifteen years and will continue to do so.

It's up to us to make the good stuff available. Whatever it takes. But we 
must work on that, mostly within our own organizations instead of the 
chimerae of recommendations/regulations, etc. Well-intentioned designers 
will not use "image-text" if they give a shit about somebody who must read 
80-point text and to whom aforesaid images of text look like a flying-apart 
universe. At least they will minimize the problem somehow (d-links, 
longdesc, whatever).

In short there is nothing wrong with the guidelines/checkpoints setting a 
higher standard than is likely to be met or even meetable. "Thou shalt not 
kill" clashes with death penalties but lots of people live with both as 
ideals. We can say that you have to do [some presently undoable] stuff if 
we believe it will be doable - particularly if we give feasible workarounds.

The above (senile?) ramblings are meant to say: Len's suggestion is 
undeniable; we cannot sanction evading proscribing what leads to it coming 
up; W3C/WAI must resolve to make even their logo not present the admitted 
barrier. And, yes, I know there's a real world out there and that any rules 
we make can be successfully ignored - that doesn't have to stop us from 
making the rules.

Oh, just to demonstrate my own hypocrisy in this matter I not only claim 
AAA conformance on the site I'm building, I use the conformance logos as 
table column headers! It's now at:    :http//rdf.pair.com/xchecker.htm

Fire away!

--
Love.
                 ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE

Received on Friday, 20 October 2000 18:40:18 UTC