- From: David Poehlman <poehlman@clark.net>
- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 09:29:44 -0400
- To: Robert Neff <robneff@home.com>
- CC: IG <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>, w3c-wai-eo@w3.org, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
One thing we are faced with is that the guidelines are so new to the world that they do not know how to take them. we must make it clear that the guidelines in and of them selves cannot be made into requirements but are the substance from which requirements can be drawn. I think people should be pointed to the html 4.0spec and its guidance documentation and then as a view toward requirement/standards development for accessibility encouraged to work with the guidelines. we have other guidelines coming out which may suffer the same fate. Look at the ua guidelines for example. the authoring tools guidelines. those to impact how software for interfacing with and designing the web is developped. we cannot we must not use them directly as standards or requirements, but as guides toward accomplishing accessibility. if I understood the eitaac process at all, it was encouraged that the guidelines be followed when promulgated in determining how accessible a site would be and developping it accordingly. 508 mandates accessibility if it mandates anything at all but does not necessarily mandate the process for achieving it. It is the media hype and the agency enterpretation that is doing this to us. tell them to lay off and learn. Robert Neff wrote: > > hi dave, > > you have made good points. i view the original intent of the guidelines as > being overcome by events and now governments (Federal, state and local) will > use these to regulate and enforce. So how does the W3C move forward. We > never foresaw this one coming. We need to corral the guidelines and decide > how to move forward and meet this responsibility. > > My first thought is to make this a standard. It is easier to enforce and > for each office to write guidelines as based upon the standards. I do not > like the idea that guidelines can be enforced. Whereas I can accept > standards being enforced. This is what I am use to doing. > > rob -- Hands-On Technolog(eye)s Touching The Internet: mailto:poehlman@clark.net Voice: 301.949.7599 ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/poehlman http://poehlman.clark.net Dynamic Solutions Inc. Best of service for your small business network needs! http://www.dnsolutions.com ---sig off---
Received on Monday, 19 July 1999 09:33:41 UTC