- From: rcn <rcn@fenix2.dol-esa.gov>
- Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 10:28:09 -0500
- To: "W3c-Wai-Ig@W3.Org" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
From Internet World, November 9, 1998. I do not have my hardcopy with me, but I think this is the same article that has Judy's picture on the page. The URL is http://www.iw.com/print/current/webdev/19981109-w3c.html W3C Initiative Targets Non-Standard Browsing By James C. Luh A number of technologies, such as speech-based browsers, exist to help computer users with disabilities access the Internet. But in a world of image maps, scripting, plug-ins, frames, and tables, accessibility technologies are sometimes confounded when Web developers emphasize slickness over usability. That can leave users with disabilities out of the loop and prevent Web sites from reaching potential visitors and customers. Hence, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), which aims to keep the Web open to as wide an audience as possible. "The Web is becoming such a key technology for everyone," said Judy Brewer, director of the WAI International Program Office. "It's a very frightening prospect to think of people in the disability community shut out of that." Brewer said accessibility issues affect users with many types of disabilities, including visual or hearing impairments and cognitive disabilities. And accessibility efforts serve more than the people commonly thought of as "disabled," she said--they also serve the many users who are not using a standard, mouse- driven graphical browser interface. Now or in the near future, Brewer said, this could include a user browsing on the LCD of a mobile phone, or with an "eyes busy" or "hands busy" interface--while driving, for instance. The WAI therefore addresses accessibility generally rather than targeting a specific disability or technology, she said. "We talk about this in terms of universal design," she said. The WAI addresses accessibility in five principal areas, Brewer said. First, the WAI works with the W3C's working groups to ensure that the W3C's core technology specifications are created with accessibility in mind. With the WAI's assistance, the W3C promotes accessibility during development instead of patching specifications after the fact. "It's one of the first times that people with disabilities have been able to get access to a key technology at the design stage," Brewer said. Second, the WAI is drafting guidelines for building accessibility-friendly Web sites and software; two lists are currently in the working draft stage. The page-author guidelines recommend practices for authoring accessible HTML pages, such as providing alternate text for images and audio, and designing pages that can be navigated with a device other than a mouse, such as a keyboard or voice browser. The user-agent guidelines are designed to help browser makers build software that promotes accessibility--by letting a user override an author's style sheets, for example. A forthcoming set of authoring-tool guidelines, Brewer said, will aim to help vendors build accessibility-friendly tools, like HTML editing tools that prompt for alternate text for inline images or check finished pages for accessibility. A third aim of the WAI's efforts, Brewer said, is to create software tools or adapt existing tools to test sites for accessibility and fix less accessible sites. Some tools are already available. The Center for Applied Special Technology's Bobby, for example, automatically checks submitted URLs against WAI page-authoring guidelines. The other two mandates of the WAI, Brewer said, are to increase awareness and to track outside accessibility-oriented research efforts. Brewer said the WAI's outreach efforts are making substantial progress. "More and more people are asking about Web accessibility when I talk to professional content developers," she noted. She said Web developers' initial inquiries are often driven by regulatory requirements, such as the Americans With Disabilities Act or Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Web accessibility is improving, but it still has a long way to go, Brewer said. "I'd say awareness is increasing. Whether or not the extent of accessibility has increased on the Web is another question." She said that with a few exceptions, like SoftQuad Inc.'s HotMetal Pro, authoring tools have lagged. "I'm not seeing as much reaction, as much response from authoring tool manufacturers as I would have expected at this stage," Brewer said. "The fact that the W3C has this initiative is great," said Russ Holland, program director of the Alliance for Technology Access, which provides technology assistance to people with disabilities. "We'll be one step ahead of where we have been in the past." Holland said he hopes the WAI helps dispel misconceptions developers have about making Web pages accessible. "They tend to feel they've got to abandon their creativity and make the stuff really plain," Holland said. "That's not the case."
Received on Friday, 13 November 1998 10:28:11 UTC