Re: Fwd: Accessibility, discrimination, and WCAG 2.0

At 7:50 AM -0700 10/23/00, Anne Pemberton wrote:
>At 11:54 PM 10/22/00 -0700, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
>>>If a cognitively disabled person can identify a page with needed
>  >>information as "too complex for me" via e-mail or mail, [...]
>  >That's a dangerous assumption, though, don't you think?
>Kynn, the point I was making here is that it would be a fairly
>high-functioning CD person who would recognize the problem and take action.

Ah, okay.  Question, what about people who are unable to use a page,
and might not be able to write e-mail, but have access to another
person with different capabilities who could assist them with
bringing the matter to the attention of a web designer?

For example, a student in a course who is unable to use a site, and
calls over her teacher, who writes email on her behalf.

>  >How would you write a guideline for this?
>I'll think on this as we discuss it further. It's too early in the morning
>for me to think in fancy words. I think the word "reasonable" will be part
>of it. The "Reasonable man" is a strong legal concept that covers areas
>that are hard to pinpoint.

I'm not a lawyer -- and neither are the vast majority of people who
will try to apply WCAG to measure how accessible their sites are --
so the concept of "reasonable" is not one which I'm familiar with.

If we are going to use these terms -- which sound "fuzzy" to me --
in a technical document, then we need to offer a definition of what
"reasonable" means which can be applied by readers without legal
experience or training.

Can you offer a definition of "reasonable" which can be applied
in this way?

(Many people consider it perfectly "reasonable" to say "it's only
reasonable to expect that people who are (blind|deaf|mentally
different) won't use my site," and in some cases they are right,
and in some cases they are wrong.)

>  >What level of cognitive ability _is_ necessary to pay taxes?
>In the case of retarded individuals, there is a threshold where a court
>decides if the individual is competent to conduct their own business or
>not. If a person is legal "incapacitated" their tax burdens and other
>financial matters go to their "guardian".

Thanks -- I didn't know the details of how this works.

>If the content of the site is such that a reasonable person should assume
>that people of low cognitive abilities and/or low reading skills will
>need/want to use the site, they should make it accessible. If the audience
>for a site's information includes "the public", or "citizens", the site
>will need to provide for those with the lowest capacity. If the audience is
>less broad, say, those who are making a certain purchase, a determination
>whether those of low capacity will be likely (or ever able) to make such a
>purchase would be "reasonable".

Okay.  This is probably reflecting my programmer/engineer mentality,
but I'll ask anyway:  Is there a good way to quantify this further?  I
think you've done a good start, but there are more issues which I think
we should explore and issue perhaps a number of concepts related to
this in the form of explanatory text or perhaps a separate document.

>I agree designers will be looking for help from the guidelines, and it has
>long been a hope that the guidelines would address these problems. There is
>not a simple solution or definition. Much depends on the individual. I'm
>not sure if the best approach to to establish some kind of baseline level,
>or leave it all to "reasonableness". I suspect "reasonable" will need more
>definition.

Yep, we agree on this.  I worry about a "baseline level" for this
because as you state there are going to be different circumstances
for different needs.  A web site which is designed for children may
have different requirements on it than a web site designed for
giving financial advice or political information.  It would be
absurd to suggest the same baseline for all sites, if following the
principles which Anne has explained here.

I would suggest that in addition to a "reasonableness" definition,
we might also want to give concrete examples for at least half a
dozen different types of web sites -- here's a site for CD users,
here's a site for children, here's a site for financial advice,
here's a site for political discussion, and here's a site for news,
and for each site we describe what kind of accessibility features
are necessary for users who might be "reasonably" expected to use
such a site.

--Kynn
-- 
--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
http://www.kynn.com/

Received on Monday, 23 October 2000 13:33:44 UTC