RE: single browser intranets

Hi,

Suppose that a company buys JAWS for one blind employee who works
well on the intranet with it.  The company hires a second blind employee
who only uses lynx and refuses to use JAWS.  Is the intranet
accessible or not?

Scott

PS  I've been working on a web-based system using sound navigation to
help teach blind chemistry students about different chemical models.  It
works with IE4/5 and JAWS, but relies on IE 4/5 features.  Is it
accessible or not?


PPS  This does put both companies and universities in an awkward
position.  How can they plan, allocate resources, etc, if they
don't know what is accessible and what is not?


> At 10:21 AM 10/26/1999 -0700, Waddell, Cynthia wrote:
> >On the other hand, if a company does not address accessibility in their
> >intranet environment, they cannot deny employment to a person with a
> >disability simply because the company did not think ahead and design for
> >accessibility.  
> 
> Yes, this is the accessibility issue.  However, designing for and
> supporting one browser _on the intranet_ only means that when they
> hire their new blind employee, they need to make sure that they have
> the right assistive software (read: they need to buy JAWS or IBM
> Home Page Reader) and that it works with their intranet application
> (read: they need to test and possibly make minor changes to the
> programs).
> 
> It doesn't mean that they need to, in advance, provide support for
> all possible types of browsers accessing their intranet.  That's a
> requirement for internet websites, and it also makes sense for
> extranets, but for intranets, you are assumed to have a greater
> ability to control what is used there, and so you can increase the
> functionality and decrease the cost of application development
> by designing _only_ for IE 5.0 or something.
> 
> Again, in an Intranet, it _is_ possible to create an accessible
> application that can only be used with IE 5.0 +/- JAWS.

Received on Tuesday, 26 October 1999 17:11:00 UTC