- From: Gregg Vanderheiden <gv@trace.wisc.edu>
- Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 01:35:31 -0500
- To: <lguarino@adobe.com>, "'John M Slatin'" <john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu>
- Cc: <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
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