RE: RE: RE: RE: Impact Analysis for Guideline 4.2

Loretta, 

Hmmm.  I think "being compatible with AT" does require that AT exists.   One
reason Apple built a screen reader directly into their OS was because they
lost the only commercial screen reader for the MAC and you couldn't make
things compatible with AT if there is none.  

RE User agents including AT if AT exists - I think that is true.   The
purpose of 4.2 though I though was for 'ad hoc' user agent functionality
that was shipped with the content rather than being part of a stand alone
user agent. 

How do we cover that part - is a question I'm not sure I understand the
answer to yet.  

 
Gregg

 -- ------------------------------ 
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D. 
Professor - Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center 
University of Wisconsin-Madison 

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of lguarino@adobe.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 11:56 PM
To: John M Slatin
Cc: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: Re: RE: RE: RE: Impact Analysis for Guideline 4.2


> Loretta wrote (in response to Gregg):
> <blockquote>
> I think the screen reader access would need to be provided by the user
> agent for the technology in which you 
> are creating the user interface. So this question would definitely
> affect baseline 
> </blockquote>Hmmm. I don't think I understand this. There seems to be an
> implied separation between the user agent and the screen reader that
> makes the user agent *responsible* somehow for providing screen reader
> functionality? Am I reading that right?

Strictly speaking, from a UAAG conformance claim perspective, the
browser/screen reader combination would 
be considered a single User Agent. You would make claims to satisfy the
Speech contenet type of UAAG based 
on their combined functionality. But I don't think this implicit inclusion
of assistive technology is obvious when 
we refer to user agents, so I have been calling out the assistive technology
explicitly.

Section 508 fundamentally requires that the browser/software application
provide support for APIs that would 
enable assistive technology to support it. But it doesn't actually require
that there exist assistive technology that 
does support it. I think we are suggesting that all pieces of the software
chain be considered when selecting 
baseline technologies.

Received on Wednesday, 6 April 2005 06:35:52 UTC