Re: Making room for exceptions (was: 1.1 suggestion)

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Joe Clark wrote:

>Let us all keep in mind a general exception that must be applicable to all
>our guidelines: If the purpose of the page (section, site, resource,
>document) is to teach the topic of accessibility itself, it may violate
>the guidelines. Hence indeed not "all" content may be accessible.

There are lots of reasons content may be inaccessible. I don't see why
explaining something that is not accessible is a good reason for making
something inaccessible - it should be possible to provide an accessible
explanation.

>I don't think that "scoping" is a good way to handle this. I suggest a
>clear and explicit exception.

I don't think "scoping" has anything to do with it. I don't see any need for
an exception here. Especially if we recognise that we live in the real world,
where plenty of things aren't made accessible because it is easier to provide
an inaccessile version than to make the effort of turning something into an
accessible version.

Nikud, or captions, or alt texts, are real work. Not everyone does it always.
What's the point of saying "we think this can be called accessible, although
we know it isn't" for some class or other of things that have a reason that
would stand up in the real world as a justification for simply ignoring the
guidelines? At least we could otherwise know in advance that some content
isn't accessible, as opposed to knowing that it got some exception, and
passes the guidelines even though it is not actually useful to someone with a
disability.

cheers

Chaals

Received on Tuesday, 8 June 2004 21:30:24 UTC