Re: WCAG 2.0 Conformance Proposals for 30 November 2006

On Thu, Dec 07, 2006 at 05:27:40PM -0600, Gregg Vanderheiden wrote:
> This is indeed an important point.  The problem with the approach suggested
> is that for plug-ins etc non-discriminatory means that the cost for people
> with disabilities is the same as for those without.  So
> accessibility-enabled plug-ins should be the same cost and availability as
> non-accessibility enabled plug-ins.   
> 
> But for AT the cost to people WITHOUT disabilities is $0.  There is no way
> to have the cost for people with disabilities be $0 for their AT. (would be
> nice.)  And I don't think we want to say that if people with out
> disabilities can access it without AT then people with disabilities should
> be able to access it without needing AT.   

This depends on how you read the non-discrimination requirement.

For user agents/plug-ins, the requirement is that the accessibility-enabled
version be available at the same cost as the non-accessibility-enabled
version (if there is one).

For AT, there is only one product, so the requirement would simply be that it
ought to be available on a non-discriminatory basis (at equivalent cost, if
any) to all. That is, if the AT is available at the same cost to people with
or without disabilities (evaluators, for example, might occupy the latter
category) then the requirement would be trivially satisfied, if interpreted as
I have suggested.

Independelty of the above, the main difficulty with the current draft is that
the "availability to almost all users" requirement in respect of AT is left
completely undefined, and I think it would be better to have a single
common availability requirement/definition if at all feasible.

Received on Friday, 8 December 2006 00:02:59 UTC