- From: Joe Clark <joeclark@joeclark.org>
- Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 12:19:04 -0400
- To: WAI-GL <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>, Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
>This looks to me much more like trying to develop policy than any >technical explanation of twhat is required for streamed media to be >accessible. We're writing a performance standard, not a design standard. We articulate principles and then give cases, based on specific technologies (e.g., alt text in HTML), on how to meet the principles. I believe the colloquial term for the above claim is "straw-man argument." >Internet radio is not accesible to Deaf people unless it has >captions or signed captions. "Signed captions" wouldn't be captions, because that would be a translation, and sign language is accessible only to the speakers of its translated language, while captioning is accessible to all speakers of the source language. In any event, of course net radio is inaccessible to the deaf. Radio radio is inaccessible to the deaf. And, you know, some things are either intrinsically inaccessible (to give a job-related example, driving a bus if you're severely visually impaired) or cannot be made accessible without undue hardship. That exemption exists in many human-rights and disability laws for a reason. I would just like proponents of *requiring* all online audio feeds to be captioned to establish the following: * That they know the true variety and extent of current online audio types. 45-second demo files are of course one such variation, but does WAI (note well I am saying "WAI") really know how widely used online audio is, and in how many ways? * That they know the exact steps that would need to be taken-- technical, human-resources, the lot-- to actually caption all those audio variations. I really mean the exact steps-- no vagaries like "provide captioning." * That they understand the cost and levels of expertise involved. Once we've got some assurance that WAI (note well: WAI) knows what it's talking about instead of floating various abstract notions, then we could have an informed discussion. >WAI doesn't invalidate anything - it just lays out the technical >information required so that people can make sensible decisions of >fact (is Internet radio accessible as is?) and based on those they >can make policy decisions (should internet radio reqiure captions? >SHould all movies always require audio description? Starting >tomorrow?) WCAG invalidates inaccessible Web features. WCAG articulates principles and provides certain limited technical guidance. It's also seemingly contradictory here: Charles flatly states that net radio, to use the example, is inaccessible to deaf listeners, meaning he would presumably countenance fixing the problem once and for all. Yet here he says WCAG should simply state a problem and let somebody else decide to fix it. And what *I* wrote was: >>No captions for audio-only feeds even if they're nothing but voice. >>I don't want WAI essentially invalidating net radio. Compact discs >>don't have to be made accessible to the deaf because their sound >>contents have no visual component, but music videos must be >>captioned because they do have a visual component. The same >>principle applies here. Captions would be permitted. We just wouldn't require them. I suppose I should have made that more obvious. >My interest in this group is in writing techniques. Providing >techniques for captioning internet radio streams is one thing, but >working on techniques for deciding when they become mandatory is >something that is best decided by policy makers, and something that >will be decided differently in different areas. WCAG *requires* certain accessibility steps be taken to achieve Level [X] compliance. WCAG is all *about* requirements even if the ultimate WCAG is verbally camouflaged as a W3C "recommendation." I don't know why Charles has his knickers in a knot about this. Maybe he could give it another go, answering my queries above and trying harder to make sense this time. >Grace periods and exemptions to allow people to conform are not what >the WCAG group is about Really? How are Priority 1, 2, and 3 compliance today really different from phased-in grace periods? Meet Priority 1 now, and later, after some more work, meet 2, then later still and after more work, meet 3. I provided my suggestions for audiovisual accessibility in direct response to Gregg Vanderheiden's query and in response to a couple of off-list requests. I have opted not to spend an hour and a half writing 2,000 words providing a technical justification for what I wrote, but trust me: There is neither the technology nor the funding nor the expertise in the world right now to caption all online video. The money part isn't going to go away soon. But the technology and expertise could be ramped up rather quickly if a deadline were looming. My suggestion requires *some* online video on a site to carry captions (audio description is a separate discussion) to meet Level [X] accessibility in WCAG 2.0. Two years (for example) later, that same site would have to caption *all* its new video to meet Level [X]. That's an audacious requirement, all but unprecedented, in fact. (I know of one limited counterexample.) That all seems like win-win to me. As it stands, there is almost no video on the Web with captions. It is nearly impossible to find. For a multimedia-rich site, this is a severe stumbling block to meeting current Priority 1 accessibility *requirements* under WCAG 1.0. As I have explained to WAI (note well: WAI) many times in the past, if WCAG goes overboard in specific areas, developers will simply refuse to adopt the whole package. That will certainly be true if Level [X] compliance in 2.0 is based on an all-or-nothing group of requirements, as is currently the case. In other words, if we heed Charles's strident cries and require captions on all online audio starting on day one, then we'll see massive defection from WCAG 2.0, damaging articles in the online publications, and widespread condemnation of WAI (note well: WAI). If, on the other hand, we show we're serious about audiovisual accessibility *but also realistic* about how to do it, then guess what? People will comply because they will actually be able to. > - and they seem to be closely predicated on the application of WCAG >to North America - or are you arguing that a grace period of about 2 >years would be appropriate for Vietnamese-produced net-TV and >educational video supplied in English/French/Bislama over the >internet by the government of Vanuatu? Canada and the United States, but certainly not Mexico, are the world leader in AV accessibility. Australia, merely as an example, can't even get its act together on TV captioning. And Charles again reverts to his favoured mechanism of positing an obscure edge case as an argument to be applied everywhere. The problem is how often WAI buys those kinds of arguments. The day Vietnam starts producing "net-TV and educational video" to Vanuatu is the day I hop the monorail down to Manhattan to get my hair done. -- Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/> Weblogs and articles <http://joeclark.org/weblogs/> <http://joeclark.org/writing/> | <http://fawny.org/>
Received on Sunday, 22 June 2003 12:19:56 UTC