- From: Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>
- Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:17:45 +0100
- To: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
In the current definition of assistive technology https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#atdef the concept of user agent is qualified with "mainstream", e.g. "hardware and/or software that acts as a user agent, or along with a mainstream user agent" "Note 2: Assistive technologies often communicate data and messages with mainstream user agents by using and monitoring APIs." Would it also make sense to qualify the actual "assisitive technologies" with "mainstream"? In the current wording, it seems that any AT, even a completely non-standard one (for instance, if somebody invented a completely new AT that doesn't act/behave like any other common AT, and crucially does not interface with mainstream user agents or the OS in a standardised way), would still be covered, meaning that in theory authors would need to ensure their content works correctly (so testing, potentially coding specifically for that exotic AT that doesn't work like any other similar AT) against it in order for their content to be considered accessibility supported? Am I misreading/misunderstanding this, or is it an actual potential problem? Would adding "mainstream" in front of "assistive technologies" in most of that definition address this potential problem? Thoughts (and inevitable lengthy discussion) welcome, P -- Patrick H. Lauke www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
Received on Friday, 15 July 2016 11:18:07 UTC